Monday, October 30, 2006

Lucky

I've done more or less nothing today, but still, I feel drained and sick. This is largely because when I came to check out my computer today, I had an instant message from one of my best friends, Derek Ruiz, saying that his house had burned to the ground and he lost everything.
After that, I couldn't get ahold of him, which was freaking me out. Now he had already told me that he was okay, so I wasn't worried about his health or whatever. But I felt really helpless.
Over the last year or so, Derek and I have communicated in some way virtually every day. When I met him in person this August in Chicago, I knew that we'd be friends for a long time.
Sometimes, with internet friends, you don't really know how that's going to translate when you actually sit down with the person. But we got along great and it was natural as can be.
And when one of your friends hurts, you hurt too. Or I do anyway.
As it turns out, he's been taking it well, but he lost literally EVERYTHING he owns and he has no insurance.
My feelings are all over the map. I feel really lucky for one thing. I feel bummed for him because he essentially has to start over again. A comics collection gone - 20 years in the making. Luckily, he has a big and generous family and they're all coming together to get him more clothes and stuff. He has a place to stay and his family is doing what family does best.
Really, the only thing I have that he still needs is reading material.
I am putting together a little care package of comics and books and stuff.
I don't know who really reads this, but whoever you are, consider yourself lucky. Oh, and get renter's insurance. It's cheap and I am sure Derek will be the first to tell you that it's invaluable.
I am grateful that Derek survived the fire and I'll hug my family a bit tighter tonight.
You should do the same.

Saturday, October 28, 2006

St Louis vs. The Alters


I'm sure by now, everyone knows that our Cardinals did indeed win the World Series. If you lived here, it would be a pretty big deal. It is for everyone we know and encounter. There are parties and celebrations and easily 95% of the population of St Louis was glued to their tvs last night. This includes actual baseball fans as well as the me toos who only care when it's their home team. These people don't really seem to understand a ton about the game and honestly don't care about the sport. But they're sure as fuck wearing the shirts and watching the games using terms like "ours" and "us".
Where were Jennifer and I?


We were at the movie theater watching the decent though not spectacular adaptation of Augusten Burroughs's memoir, Running with Scissors. As in most cases, the book was better, but the movie was interesting and watchable if not always faithful.
But the interesting thing is that as I waited for Jennifer to join me at the ticket taker, I saw a small group of people waiting to see Marie Antoinette. They (and this grouping was comprised of members of both sexes as posers know no gender.) were lamenting that they were unable to watch the Cardinals win the World Series. One girl repeatedly stated that she "could not believe that she was missing the game."
Now, I listened to these people talk enough that I could discern that were not in fact waiting for other, presumably more commanding people to arrive, possibly with guns, that would invariably be held to their heads, effectively stopping them from watching the game that was, in fact, broadcast on free, national television.
Now last I heard, going to the cinema was optional. There is no obligation and they actually charge you money to walk in the door. So why in the everloving fuck would you come and pay 17 dollars to watch a movie when you'd rather be in front of any of St Louis's 5 million televisions watching this "momentous occasion" for free?
Neither Jennifer or I cared about watching this game as neither of us like baseball and neither of us care to pretend to care for the sake of showing "team spirit." If you did, more power to you, but at this stage of my life, I barely have the energy to participate in things I genuinely care about, so spending time watching a game that meant nothing to me was not in the cards. Ha ha, no pun intended.
But all of this left me last night at 2 am, wondering why I'm like this.
Sometimes it would be nice to not have so much on my shoulders. During college, I never once got drunk or high. Now I didn't really have any moral objections to either. It just sort of never occurred to me. Now, I have a medication-induced gastritis that really doesn't allow me to drink enough alcohol so that I can get sufficiently drunk. I've never thrown up because I drank too much.
Now, I've always been on the neurotic end of things. I worry about things that normal people just don't. I just can't relax enough to enjoy any of these activities. I don't particularly like being around drunk or high people, because it brings a degree of unpredictability into the equation that I am always painfully aware of. It's like I spend the entire party in a flinch, waiting for someone to piss someone else off and start a fight or god knows what other sort of unnamed offense. It's almost as though I feel like if I am sober, I can somehow bring reason to the table. I don't really trust other people to control the situation and bring the sort of stability that I need in order to be able to react. So I stay alert and vigilant, which really doesn't make for all that good of a time.
Occasionally, I'll get a little tipsy, but generally, only when I get to control who is there. I think this likely comes from some sort of persecution complex coming from childhood or some other Freudian concept.
But god damn, sometimes I wish I could relax enough to enjoy the things that everyone else likes. Whether or not they're actually happy or having fun, it sure seems like everyone is having more fun than me and frankly, I just don't know how to fix that. That said, while I've never been drunk in public and I've never been high at all, I have been in a major Hollywood movie. I've had these weird fucking experiences that seem to vary in degrees of goodness or badness, but all ultimately lead me to my conclusion that somehow, I am living a vastly different life than everyone else. I'm no better or worse than anyone else, but would it really be that hard for me to be normal? I mean, shit, how often does someone meet an obsessive compulsive, agnostic, psychologist/comic book writer who at one point was a Hollywood extra?
The bottom line is that uniqueness is somewhat overrated. It doesn't necessarily make you happier because being unique says nothing about the overall quality of your experiences. You aren't better or worse, you're just different. And difference sometimes brings aloneness.
I dunno, does that even make any sense?
Journals and blogs are weird because they sometimes take on a life of their own. This was intended to be a post about how we were doing something totally different last night from everyone else in our city. No judgements, no deep thoughts. Just the facts. And somehow, it evolved into this rambling, jumbled essay that oddly enough, makes me feel a little better, which is weird when you consider that I was only superficially aware that anything was even wrong in the first place.
I guess there's something to be said for filterless writing.

More TV

I think this shall be the second to last post about the new season of tv.
This is only because there is one last show debuting in November, called Daybreak. So I'll post again to say whether or not it was any good.

Ugly Betty - Yeah. It recorded and my mom likes it so I checked it out. It's a truly odd show. Not sure what to think about it except I don't like it. Dropped.

Dexter - Not sure if this one counts since it's a Showtime show. But it's really good and we're going to continue watching it, so I thought to include it. I'm not sure I've ever seen a show quite like it. The main character is a serial killer who hunts other serial killers. So he should be unlikeable, right? Who can like a sociopath? And that's why it's so weird. Cause you LIKE him, but don't LOVE him. He's creepy and off and you sort of wonder why nobody in the show realizes just how off, but it's good. Kept.

The Nine - Not thrilling, but somewhat interesting. I have absolutely no idea how to maintain a season based on the premise much less the looming question of what multiple seasons would look like. But so far, it's a pretty interesting character study. I dunno, they'll probably cancel it, but we're watching it anyway.

30 Rock - Not sure what braintrust decided that NBC needed two shows about a Saturday Night Live type show, but in a showdown, this one wins hands down. For starters, it's actually funny. The characters are more likeable and for fuck's sake, they made me like Alec Baldwin. I'm in.

So, to look at the numbers fairly, I have to remove Smith since it was promptly cancelled 3 episodes in.
With this post, we picked up 3 shows and lost 2.
By my calculations, we have picked up 8 shows as of today.
We sampled and promptly dropped 6 shows.
1 program was cancelled and whether or not we're going to continue watching Justice is up in the air. If we do decide to drop Justice, which is going nowhere fast, then that will put our watching of this season at exactly 50/50 (including Smith as being cancelled).

I think this may go on record as the least interesting experiment ever.

Thursday, October 05, 2006

More TV

Though I'm certain that nobody cares, I thought I'd continue this for the sake of an experiment I wondered - Would Tivo change my television watching habits?

Smith - I like this one. I dig the heists and we're two episodes in and I am interested. No idea how you sustain a series, but I'm intrigued. Every one of the actors is good too. Just generally a good show. John Wells, creator of ER, is the exec, though there are very few similarities.

Runaway - Because Tivo recorded it, I tried to watch it. Donnie Wahlberg. Two words is all you need. We didn't finish the first episode.

There are still more waiting on the Tivo, but it's a time consuming process.

We're currently 6/5 on a keep to drop ratio.
But I'd probably put it at more of a 5.25/5 ratio since I am not entirely certain we're in for the long haul with Shark or Justice. Both have the real potential to get old fast. We'll see.

Wednesday, October 04, 2006

A break from the inanity...

Well, as pointless as this blog has become, I have some news and I want to tell pretty much everybody.
My wife, Jennifer Pugh Alter, passed the Missouri State Bar Exam and once she is sworn in, will officially be licensed to practice law.
I'm very proud of her as this is the culmination of over three and a half years of hard work. There were rough times and she was not totally convinced she'd pass.
But she did. And today, we're celebrating.