I am currently working my way through a small mountain of transcripts, which has taken its toll on me.  So, I have been inspired with the spirit of reflection.

In approximately six weeks, I will turn 30.  In LOGAN'S RUN years, I'll be dead.  This birthday scares the living crap out of me.  Your 20s are a time for "finding yourself," which essentially means you can screw up, fall off the path, and write it off because you were in your 20s.  At least, that's what movies, TV, and several short novels by former Ivy Leaguers have taught me.

My ability to find things to feel guilty about continues unabated.  This is mostly because I know that what has kept me from achieving the things I think I want most in life is my own lack of ambition and effort.  

But hang it all -- I accomplished SOME things this year.  Big ones:

-My joining the Weight Watchers program and dedicating myself to a daily regime of diet and exercise has resulted in a net loss of...let me check my book...45.6 pounds since May 15.  I was 258 when I started; now I'm around 212. 

I really should update that profile picture; I was 260-ish when they took that three years ago.

People have told me I looked much better than 258, and now say I look "so much better."  This often makes me wonder how I looked before. 

It has been a battle both to keep losing weight and to not become manorexic in my efforts to do so.  I admit to a few weeks where I've tended to fast on weigh-in days; I call it "Zack-Ramadan."  The people at the organization assure me everyone has done this at some point.

This has been a nice reminder that if you really, truly APPLY yourself at something, really focus on on it EVERY DAY, you will see results over time.  So that's nice.

-Second accomplishment of sorts is I moved into a condo.

I confess I see this on some level as a sort of failure on my part.  Wha'happen was I moved back in with my parents in late 2006, then started getting pressure to figure out a long-term plan in 2007, then went through a period where I'd get a job, then the job would end because the company lacked resources or what, and I couldn't get a job out of town, etc.

Then my parents sold their house in Raleigh for a huge profit right before the economy tanked, paid off a custom-built house they'd had constructed over the last decade, and had more than enough left over to purchase a small condo where I could live.

The only caveat is I have to host them whenever they're in town.  This has resulted in my making many "time of the month" jokes.

Well, now I have a two-bedroom one-level condo in a complex that is located near most of the major areas of the city and has a pool.  This is very nice.  I can have company over, which never happened at other places where I lived.  Also, it heats up quickly.

The caveat is I get lonely, which occasionally aggrivates my anxiety, and then there are times where I have to force myself to get on a good schedule so I don't spend an excessive amount of time being comatose and/or smelly.

Ironically, I am now in a better living situation than most of the jobs I wanted and didn't get would probably let me afford.   Which leads to:

-I got some big interviews (again)!

Whenever I get a good interivew, I immediately put some pressure on myself to get an even better interview.  You  might call it insane; I call it "personal growth."  I'll probably do another post on this later, but I published in excess of 100 interviews this year, and at least 10 of them are what I would put in my clip file, and at least two of them are people my famiy has actually heard of.

I suppose the big one was getting two hours and change on the phone with Alan Moore.  My family would say it was the 10 minutes or so I got with Dan Aykroyd.  Whatever the case, this has further shown me what I can accomplish if I apply myself consistently and go after that which seems out of reach. 

My final, and most mundane accomplishment was:

-I did some traveling.  Well, I didn't get out of the states.  But I did go to Pittsburgh, Los Angeles and Washington DC for extended periods.  LA was the biggest trip and the one where I'd never been before, and I had a great time going to a TV festival and seeing a few friends.  I love discussing scripts and TV shows and old books, so this was like a...I'm trying to make a CALIFORNICATION joke that won't come off as inappropriate.

I was going to go to NYC early next year, and I recently got my first adult passport.  "Where do you want to go?"  asked the lady at the post office.  "I don't know," I replied, "but I want to know that I can go there."

She said the State Department might hold up my request for that, but I got the passport in the mail a week and a half later.  Huh.

-I branched into some new areas: Some miscellaneous work I did this year included reviewing screenplays, sending out promotional copies of a gothic fantasy graphic novel, and writing a manual for a house painting company.  I'm just throwing that in for completeness' sake.

-I let some stuff go:  By "stuff," I mean actual stuff.  As in hundreds if not thousands of comic books, books, loose action figures and my entire VHS collection. 

I find once you get rid of things....you usually don't even remember what it is you don't have any more.  Like, you were just hanging on to it because you thought you'd need it again one day.  And the truth is, you just didn't want to move forward with out it.

That was overwrought, but you get the metaphor.

Anyway, on to...

GOALS FOR 2010: THE YEAR WE MAKE CONTACT:

1) Apply some discipline to my creative work.  I often step back from this when I don't like the results, or obsessively rewrite the same thing over and over to "fix" it.  I want to finish at least one extended project and launch something else over this next year

2) Become a better listener.  I sometimes still find myself in the mindset of my school days, which involves tuning out while someone else talks in order to go inside my own head.  I've gotten better at not (purposefully) hijacking conversations, but I would like to be able to communicate better with others, and not steamroll them with details.

3) Be able to relate to people and situations without saying "this is just like that (book, comic, TV show, film).  Not sure how to do that.

4) Stop being so hard on myself.  After a conversation with a Catholic friend and a Jewish friend where they both agreed I had more guilt than both of them put together, it's been reinforced in my head that I have a problem.  Despite my family's insistence that I do not need "happy pills," I do want to find better ways to manage my anxiety in the new year. 

5)  Try dating more more, because while I see myself as a decent guy with a lot to offer, I need to get over this fear that all the smart, funny, reasonably attractive women got married out of college and now I'm only capable of attractive/being attracted to those so damaged by their previous relationships that the result is either complete codependency or the friend zone. 

It tales a lot for me to relax and enjoy life, but when I do enjoy it, I think I get more enjoyment than people who are, you know, capable of relaxing on a regular basis.  I'm resonably certain that if I apply myself and step out of my comfort zone, I could make a postive accomplishment that would greatly improve my personality and character.

Or something.  I find peole who make declarations like this usually wind up with a substance abuse problem.

There's a few weeks left in this year.  I sincerely hope that no one dies, there are no major national/global catastrophies, that I can get through my backlog of work before Christmas, and that I don't develop the aforementioned substance abuse problem.  I did get a bit nauseous after making Irish car bombs with some friends last week, but that was because I only had Maker's Mark instead of Jameson's, and using half an orange juice glass is not the same as a shot glass. 

Alcohol is not your friend.

Happy 2009, everyone!

With Halloween around the corner, I decided to look deep within the depths of my psyche to determine what I truly fear.   And I managed to dig up a ton o' stuff! 

I showed this list to a friend, who replied, "Well, I'm scared now, but probably not for the reasons you'd think."  I must have done a GREAT job!

Cockroaches

American cheese (it looks so plastic!)

Getting mugged

Getting mugged at gunpoint

Getting stabbed to death by a knife-wielding dwarf like in the 1973 film DON'T LOOK NOW

Going deaf from listening to my iPod (Dad keeps emailing me)

Going blind

Spontaneously going illiterate

Radiation sickness

Being abducted in a foreign country

Getting lost in a foreign country

Being in a plane that gets hijacked by terrorists

Being in a movie theater picked as a site for a suicide bombing by terrorists

Becoming racist because I falsely suspect someone of being a terrorist

An asteroid hitting the earth

Getting yelled at by authority figures

Nuclear war

Dying in my sleep while I'm still young

Getting up early

Confirming my master's degree is worthless

Being alone

Not having privacy

Attacked by bears

Being arrested for a crime I didn't commit

Being arrested for a crime I DID commit, but didn't think was that big a deal, like downloading music off the Internet when I was in college (my Mom kept emailing me reports)

Being sent to prison and having things happen to me like happened to the "Tobias Beecher" character on the HBO drama OZ

Similar to the last one, but more related to the film DELIVERANCE, specifically the Ned Beatty character

Global pandemic

Global warming

Sarah Palin getting elected president

Herpes (not so much AIDS for some reason)

Failing to lose enough weight and contracting Type 2 Diabetes

Overdoing my weight-loss program and contracting an eating disorder

My dad

My mom when she's in party-planning mode

My fingernails falling off

A heart attack

Failure

Killing someone in a car accident

Having a car accident, in general; also getting a speeding ticket or anything that could raise my insurance

Losing all my money

Alienating people through excessive whining

Impregnating a one-night stand, which probably isn't funny like KNOCKED UP

Finding out you impregnated a one-night stand, and your illegitmate child grew up in an abusive home, and now they want to kill you, which has happened to at least three major comic-book superheroes

Mayonaise-based fruit salad

Photos of unborn children

Plague rats

A dog biting my crotch off (it happened in Garth Ennis' PREACHER!)

Being chained to the bottom of a swimming pool that's slowly filled with water, and you're gagged so you can't yell for help, and then the pool fills up and you float, but the chain's shorter than the depth of the pool, so you drown even though you're just a few inches away from air.

Same as the last, only they fit you with an oxygen tank, and keep you down there for days, which is sort of a variation on something else they did in PREACHER

This one episode of NIGHT GALLERY where this guy gets an earwig in in his ear, and then it eats its way through his head, and then it comes out the other end but IT LAID EGGS.  This fear applies both to the episode and the actual situation.  Oh, and being controled by a kid with unlimited psychic powers like on that TWILIGHT ZONE episode.

Getting trapped on a space ship/station that's slowly running out of air

Same as last, but on a submarine

Clowns.  Specifically John Wayne Gacy, the Joker, and Pennywise from Stephen King's IT.  Who wasn't as scary when he turned into a giant crab-thing, but let's not dwell.

The fly with the human head from the original version of THE FLY, which is odd as I can watch the David Cronenberg version over and over and feel nothing

Falling off a parking deck at Crabtree Valley Mall (oddly specific, I know)

Being stabbed in the heart by someone who mistakes you for a vampire, only you're not a vampire, and you die all slowly

Stabbing someone in the heart you mistook for a vampire, and watching them die all slowly, then getting sent to prison and having stuff happen to you like Tobias Beecher on OZ

Going to Hell

Going to Purgatory

Going to Heaven if it's run by the Religious Right

Nothing happening when you die and your brain dissolving

Death, in general

Getting your personality wiped like on DOLLHOUSE

Sewage

One of the great shames of my life is my one-time addiction to daytime soap operas.

Yes, daytime soap operas.

I watched pretty much all of them at one time or another.  If I got bored with one show, I'd watch a different one. 

Why I watched came down to the following reasons:

1) They were the only fictional medium with continuity as complicated as comic books.

2) The serialized storytelling allowed for unique long-term character development.

3) Attractive young actresses.  I'm shallow.

Enjoying daytime soap operas was like being in the closet, in some ways.  I couldn't discuss them with my friends, for fear of mockery.  And I tended to take the shows I liked far too seriously for people who enjoyed them ironically.

Oh, I had my share of doing that.  There was no way to watch PASSIONS with a straight face.  They had a witch AND a monkey.  That was some fascinating stuff.

Why I stopped watching had to do with the fact that as time went on, the base level of quality on these shows rapidly plummeted, and they became more concerned with introducing attractive young actresses (and shirtless dudes), and eventually the dumbness overhwelmed my shallowness. 

In some cases, I became morally outraged with how they were treating my beloved fictional characters who didn't really exist. I recognized this as a sign that I needed to find better things to do with my time.

Recently, though, I was nearly tempted back.

The show that got me watching soaps was GENERAL HOSPITAL.   It was on when I got home from school, and despite my being severely freaked out when I discovered the much-vaunted Luke and Laura romance WAS ABOUT A WOMAN FALLING IN LOVE WITH HER GODDAMN RAPIST, that was after I'd been sucked in by the story of Robin's boyfriend stone finding out he had AIDS, and then she had HIV and he died, and it was the most depressing thing ever, but it was really well done.

There was a really kickass crew of young actors on the show at that time.  I crushed on Robin, and on Vanessa Marcil, who played Brenda, and even a bit on Amber Tamblyn, who was my age and got her start playing Emily Quartermaine.  I liked the Quartermaines; they were  sarcastic like my family, but with money.

The younger male actors were also good, and the best was Jonathan Jackson, who played Luke and Laura's son Lucky.  I was on-and-off with the show, but the storyline that really sucked me in was when his friend Elizabeth Webber was raped, and as he helped her recover, they fell in love, and then she helped him when he discovered his parents' disturbing past.  It had a sort of tragic, generational quality, and Jackson had an authority that let him hold his own with the older actors on the show. 

By early '99, I lost interest in the show because first Brenda left (presumed dead after her car went off a cliff and NO BODY WAS FOUND!), then Robin left, and then Jackson left.  Or maybe I have the order wrong.  Whatever the case, I'd lost my taste for the show as it became more about these annoying gangsters who liked to yell and throw glassware.

Jackson didn't do a lot of acting after that, aside from the film of TUCK EVERLASTING and appearing as Kyle Reese on THE SARAH CONNER CHRONICLES.  I was somewhat intrigued when I found out he was coming back to GH as Lucky, and more so when I saw there was a clip online:

http://popwatch.ew.com/2009/10/26/jonathan-jackson-on-general-hospital-first-look/

I watched the scene, and aside from the cheesy dialogue, I had to admit I felt nostalgic.  He still had that naturalistic quality I remembered, and Elizabeth was still played by the original actress!  And their chemistry was still as sweet as ever!  Wow, maybe I should TiVo GENERAL HOSPITAL!

And then I read the comments below the clip and noticed this:

"The reason why Elizabeth is so nervous is not because the new Lucky gives her the butterfies, it’s because she slept with his half-brother Nicholas who is pretending to be in love with Rebecca, the long lost twin sister of his dead wife Emily, who pretended to be with Nicholas of the millions of dollars she thought wrongfully never given to her, but then fell in love with Nicholas just as he found out about her scam who is now in love with Elizabeth, Lucky’s fiancee. Did you get all of that?"

...and I admit my immediate reaction was, "What?!  How could she sleep with Lucky's half-brother from the notorious clan of ice-machine-making Cassadines?  She didn't even go through with it when she thought he was dead, even though he was really just being held hostage by the evil Cesar Faison, who presumably killed Robin's secret-agent parents while they were part of the WSB..."

....and then I remembered why I stopped watching these shows.

At least the actor's still working...

"Mr. Smith?"

"Here!  I mean, that's me.  Sorry, I feel like I'm in school again.  Ha ha."

"Please sit down at Station One."

"Okey-dokey!"

"Why are you here?"

"I am here to renew my driver's license.  Here is my old one, along with my birth certificate, Social Security card, and proof of insurance."

"We just need the old license."

"Whoops!  I haven't done this before.  I mean, I have my license, but I haven't renewed it before.  I kind of started driving late. Back in high school, I..."

"We just need you to sign this, then take a vision and sign test."

"Don't worry!  I studied hard."

"That's great.  Could you sign..."

"Uh, it says this form is for felons."

"No, it says we're allowed to check to see if you ARE a felon, and impose restrictions accordingly."

"Oh!  Well, I'm okay with that.  'cause I'm not a felon.  Well, I did download some music back in college, but I got rid of it when iTunes came out.  (pause)  Copyright violation is wrong."

"Do you have any history of problems with drugs, alcohol, seizures or mental health disorders?"

"What?  Look, I have a little social anxiety, but I hope I'm not giving the impression that --"

"We ask everyone this question."

"Oh.  Then I guess the answer is, 'Not that I know of!'  Ha ha."

"Please read the top layer of letters on the scanner."

(does this)  "Do you need me to read the other three rows?"


"No."

"Because I can do that.  They are very legible to me."

"Just tell me what the 12 signs below are."

"Uh...hill...slippery when wet...no U-Turn...two-way traffic around divided highway...no parking...do not enter...merging traffic from right...railroad crossing...then there's these four unlabled signs..."

"Just say what kind of signs they are."

"Uh...uh...so the first one is octagonal, which means it's a stop sign, which is a regulatory sign...then the next three are yellow, which means they're warning signs...I'm not 100 percent sure what should be on them...they could refer to highway traffic, or residental neighborhoods, or that triangular one could mean it's a school zone, or a predestrian crossing, or...oh god, I took those five sample tests with 30 questions each twice!  These questions weren't on there!  I'm going to lose..."

"You passed."

"What?"

"You just had to say they were warning signs."

"Oh."

"That'll be $32.  Cash or check only."

"Let me check my wallet.  $20...$25...$30...$32...wow, I had exactly $32 in cash in there.  What are the odds?  Good thing, otherwise I'd have had to come back!"

"We appreciate exact change.  Head over there for your picture."

"All righty!  Boy, can you believe the day I get my new license is the first day in years I get a zit on my..."

"There are people waiting."

"Okay!  Thanks again.  Guess I'll see you on the road!"

"Mmm."

I sometimes undergo periods of intense anxiety.  This anxiety usually takes the form of overwhelming, crushing guilt-slash-paranoia.  It is a pain in the ass.

In the past, such fits often came when things were expected of me, such as performing well on a test.  On other occasions, it would come as an instinctive response to my making some sort of mistake, such as screwing up at work.

For example, I have twice had occasions where I have nearly caused a traffic accident because I wanted to get home quickly.  On one occasion, I was well ahead of a cyclist and made a right turn that could have caused him to hit the side of my car.  I was so shaken by the incident that I then envisioned what would have happened if I HAD caused the cyclist to hit my car, and whether he'd be dead or crippled, and if the police would come for me, and whether my car insurance would go up.

So I googled a series of driving tips for dealing with cyclists, and reminded myself that driving was a privilege by not driving anywhere for the next 24 hours.  "This is what life would be like if you lost your license," I told myself.  "It's a reminder to drive carefully!"

Did I overreact?  Well, in all likelihood, yes.  But now, when I see a cyclist, I always remember to slow down and let them pass before I make a turn.

In the past year, my existence has become much less stressful, so my anxiety has taken to free-floating attacks.  

These attacks usually revolve around some old insecurity.  At a low level, I'll find myself obsessing over an old TV show or movie that truamatized me when I was younger.  At mid-level, I'll start reliving old arguments or times people have yelled at me.  Beyond that, I become convinced that not only does my every social action result in people being offended or creeped out by me, but that I'm guilty of some sort of crime. 

I will then displace whatever I'm anxious about onto said crimes, which range from not paying bills to putting off work to being arrested for downloading music and comics back in college.   I deleted most of the tracks once iTunes came out, I swear!

Here are the details of an anxiety attack I experienced last weekend:

It was Saturday night, and my anxiety had gotten ratcheted up when my parents visited for four days.  It got a bigger jolt the night before, when I'd forgotten to pass on a message to Mom that some company was coming to dinner, which resulted in her arguing with Dad, the message-giver, which resulted in Dad getting irate with me.

Now they were gone, but my mental defense system was still in "tense" mode, and my daily walk hadn't helped. 

I thought about going to a movie, so I went online and made a list of movies I could see, and there were five of them, but none of them started at a time where I felt I could be ready to leave the house.

Then I called a friend.  I discussed a number of topics with him, including my anxiety.  Then I called another friend.  We also discussed a number of things, including my anxiety, and also his anxiety.

Then I decided I should treat myself.  Weight Watchers allows you some extra "points" every week for junk food, and I hadn't used them yet.  There was a place about a half-mile up the street that made the best desserts in the area.  Why not get a slice of cake?

Then I spent an hour and a half on the Internet putting it off.

When I finally realized the place was going to close in a half-hour, I decided to set out.  But it was nearly nine, and I was anxious about running into a panhandler.  I'd encountered a very convincing one a few nights before, who'd really made me feel guilty when I didn't fall for his fake "my car's about to be towed" routine.

So I decided to drive the half-mile, only to find there were no parking spaces.

So I drove another half-mile down the road to do a U-turn in a church parking lot, then doubled back, and after feeling anxious about driving through the five-way intersection, I went into the parking lot of a shopping center across the street.

But then I saw a sign saying the parking spaces were for customers only.  So I went into a Rite-Aid in the shopping center, figuring that I could pretend to be a customer, and that would sort of count.

The Rite-Aid closed at 9, and it was 8:58 when I entered.  They announced the closing, and I went for the door.

An employee unlocked the door to let me out, and asked if I couldn't find what I need, was I looking for anything specific?

I squeaked out something about "browsing" and went into the parking lot, but walked around the edge of the shopping center so the employee couldn't see me.

Then I went across the intersection, terrified I was going to be hit by a car, and made it to the place with the desserts, where I stood awkwardly while a family mingled by the counter.

A waiter put his hand on my shoulder, and I almost jumped a mile.  He asked if I was there for cake -- seems they had a run on customers asking for it tonight.

So he formed a line, and the family dispersed, and they asked me what cake I wanted, and I sort of mumbled and fumbled about what looked good, and finally saw a small piece that wouldn't kill my diet.

As they got the piece, the waitstaff commented on how many people had bought cake in the last hour.  I laughed and mentioned how much I enjoyed it. 

And we got to talking, and THEY mentioned how things were kind of stressful with everyone coming in, and it was hard to keep up with orders, and I realized that no matter how I felt, EVERYONE was anxious about something, and they couldn't always hold it in, and I was silly for being so down on myself today, and getting out and just chatting with people was a good step forward.

Then I mentioned how the cake was my one indulgence of the week, and the Weight Watchers came up, and I joked how I was trying to lose weight because, "Hey, with health care today, you don't want to get diabetes!"

And there was this horribly awkward pause. 

I'd just brought up a major political issue to the waitstaff of a restraurant, and reminded their customers that their sugary treats could cause health problems, and further made myself look like this guy ordering something he knew could kill him.

At least that's how it seemed to me in that moment.

I got the cake, went across the crosswalk again (and worried about getting hit by cars), then snuck around the back way to the customers-only parking lot, worried that my car had been towed in the last 10 minutes (it hadn't), and briefly paused with I saw the Rite Aid employee coming out of the closed store (she didn't see me, and probably wouldn't have cared).

And I got in my car (as a guy walked over to his parked car, having picked up a six-pack at the convenience store next door without caring about the "customers only" parking), and drove the half-mile back to my house without seeing any panhandlers, and then decided I wasn't that hungry and would eat the slice of cake with my lunch tomorrow.

And that was my Saturday night.

The next day, I felt fine.  I took a walk, made plans with friends, got several pieces of work finished, and began looking forward to a busy week.

The day after that, my parents came through town again, and Dad borrowed my car keys to get something out of my car.

Later, he and Mom went out to dinner, and I made plans to go for a walk.  But I couldn't find my car keys, and the key to my condo was on the same chain.

After looking everywhere, I called Dad, and it turned out he'd just forgotten to give the keys back.  I told him it was no problem; I'd just take a walk in the morning.  I settled in.

About twenty minutes later, there was a knock on my door.  It was Dad.  He'd left in the middle of dinner because he couldn't get over the idea of me being suck inside my condo because he had the keys.

And in that moment, I felt much, much better about Saturday night.

So I'm in a better state, and I have about a week and a half of things to do, which should be good for me, unless the government comes looking for me in that copyright infringement.  If you put albums from a CD-ROM you burned off your last hard drive that your friend sent you through an IM servie on you iTunes, can they trace the original Internet...signature...thing?

I need Prozac.