Expression of Birthday Thankfulness

I feel like people may feel more inclined to read a blog post written on my birthday, so I think I need to make this one count.

It’s 6:25am as I start writing this, and 9:25am where it counts. In Boston, it’s currently sunny and in the 40′s. That’s just warm enough that you’re body temperature feels comfortably regulated as you head out into the world in your late fall/early winter clothing, but a wall of cool air still kisses your cheeks as you walk down the city’s beautiful streets. In Methuen, the schools are in full swing. The first batch of morning specials are approaching in the middle schools and the high schoolers are beginning to come awake after a sluggish first period and making their teachers’ lives a living hell.

Yep, life is pretty much the same on the east coast as it was when I left it. In fact, I’m fairly certain it’s exactly the same. Why wouldn’t it be?

I’ve been gone a little over four months now – 137 days, to be exact. This is the longest stretch of time I’ve ever been away from home. How does that feel? It feels (and tastes) like salty droplets falling down my cheeks.

But the tears are the good kind. A year ago at this time I was confused, depressed, and frustrated. Now I’m confident and focused on what I want to achieve for myself. As of Monday, I’ll officially be a full-time employee of one of Hollywood’s big studios. Things are finally being sorted out. Things are finally happening.

I could never have gone from Point A – a frustrated and miserable college graduate six months removed – to where I am without the same people making me feel oh-so-special today. I had given up on the idea that I had potential. They didn’t. Better yet, they reminded me over and over again that they thought so. Eventually, my stubborn and hard-headed brain believed what they had to say. Eventually I decided to believe in myself again, and I have them/you to thank for it.

A month ago I texted one of my former soccer players to check in, as I often do with most of them to see how they’re doing in high school or just starting college. I told him about the new job I had recently started. I told him how my boss was notoriously difficult and how hard it would be to master – even survive – working for him. His response was indicative of the role so many of you play in my life: “If anyone can do it, it’s you.”

In short, you all humble me completely and absolutely. I’d be nothing without you and everything I will be is because of you.

Life goes on without me back home, but because of you my life goes on here and it’s stronger than it’s ever been before.

I can never thank you enough for that gift.

A Learning Experience

There can be something to learn from failure.

Bros Talking Bro Stuff

An actual conversation so good, it needed to be performed by robots.

If I Actually Talked to the Women of My Dreams

The Boy Who Cried “The One”

I’ve been throwing around a new term lately. It’s a term to describe what happens to me on a daily basis on the bus to and from work and in grocery store aisles when all I’m really trying to do is determine the best tuna-for-my-dollar option and while I’m sitting in front of a computer at my friendly neighborhood coffee shop. I’ve described the problem in posts before, and if your personal knowledge of me extends beyond the realm of the blogosphere you’ve probably witnessed the problem firsthand.

If I’m going to have any addictions, I guess I should consider myself lucky that this is my only one. I’ve never done drugs and rarely drink. I’m not a shopaholic and certainly won’t be checking into any sex addiction clinics given my recent resume. No, my problem is a relatively harmless and, if you ask me, endearing one.

I’m addicted to falling in love, and I do so all the time. You have to understand, first off, that I’ve never actually been in love. I’ve loved, but never in reciprocated fashion. That’s certainly done it’s share of damage on my old thinking box, I assume. For this reason, I believe, I’m looking for a chance at love at every opportunity I can. When I see that “right girl” on the bus or in the grocery store or sitting across from me in the coffee shop, then, I’m eager to jump to the conclusion in my thinking box that this girl – who I’ve never even spoken to, mind you – is the most perfect angel in the world and was put on this world for me and me alone.

I call it a heart boner. The typical man’s men get your more traditional boner – deriving from the genital region – when they stumble across a pretty girl, and look to engage the girl in conversation with the intention of dragging her back to their love cave for a night of carnal passion. I, however, have the much more respectable and not-in-the-least-bit-crazy intention of introducing the girl to my grandmother after our first blissful week of knowing each other results in an engagement, wedding plans, and baby-naming possibilities.

Not in the least bit crazy, indeed.

I know my thinking is very flawed when I fall in “love” with these strangers. I understand most women (or at least I’m told) are secretive animals who don’t like to explicitly reveal any strong emotional attachment until a reasonable amount of time has elapsed and social norms finally give you the okay to say “I love you” without looking like a total nut. By these calculations, I must be out of my mind, right? There must be something seriously wrong with me if Wednesday night I was actually considering sitting next to the beautiful girl on the bus and telling her she’s the one I’ve been waiting for my entire life.

Like when genetics made the mean girls from high school get fat in college, however, science has my back. A study of falling-in-love brains has found that falling in love isn’t a slow process that occurs over the first few months of a relationship’s construction. Rather, the chemical reactions within the brain that cause us to feel love occur in less than a second…one-fifth of a second, to be exact. As we sang in Hello, Dolly in the high school musical my sophomore year, “It only takes a moment…”

That one-fifth-of-a-second chemical reaction could take place three weeks into a relationship, three months, or, for the severely emotionally detached, three years. I guess that I, on the other hand, am genetically pre-disposed to undergo the reaction at first glance. I believe in love at first sight because I experience it all the time. Some may not believe in it because their brains don’t reward them with lovey-dovey butterflies for a few months. To each his own.

I’m not trying to imply that I’m any better for my heart boner condition, either. I know I need to wait a little while and find proof that my initial gut reaction was an accurate one. I know I need to keep things under wraps for a little while once it’s confirmed before I go blurting out anything I may regret. The first time I ever said I love you, for instance, came 767 days after that initial one-fifth of a second realization. (But who’s counting?)

My heart boners, then, are perfectly harmless. They’ve been much more common lately, and sure I may be texting my friends a little too often saying, “I found the one!” these days, but what’s the harm in hoping each day that I may have actually found someone to be happy with?

I can answer that question in one-fifth of a second.

Nothing Really Mattress to Me

The night of July 4th, I went to sleep in my bed in Methuen knowing I’d be driving west in the morning and saying goodbye to my childhood bedroom for an indeterminable amount of time. I also knew I’d be saying goodbye to the simple comfort of a mattress on a regular basis for quite some time. In fact, since that night I’ve only spent a handful of nights on a real mattress.

• The first night of the road trip was spent in a bed at a Red Roof Inn in Akron (three nights before Lebron James would spark riots in its streets).
• A few nights later (the night of Lebron’s “Decision,” to be exact) I slept in a bed at a Fairfield Inn in Oklahoma City. For the next month I was either sleeping on a couch, the floor, the ground (at the Grand Canyon) or on an air mattress, prompting me to exclaim in moments of high stress, “I haven’t slept in a bed since Oklahoma City!” The most depressing phrase ever uttered.
• In August, on a trip down the coast with two friends from back east, I spent one night on a tiny guest room bed (breaking the Curse of Oklahoma City) and the next sleeping head-to-toe in a hotel bed in San Diego, which I don’t think should count.
• When one of my roommates (or should I say “When one of the people who lets me live in her house…”) went home for a weekend for a wedding, I slept two nights in her bed.
• Last Saturday night after a marathon night of video games (because I am among the very young at heart)  my friend Kyle opted to let me sleep in his king-size bed and take the couch instead of drive me home at 3 am.

And there you have it – all of my nights on a real mattress since moving exactly three months ago. In the meantime, I rest my head on a little air mattress donated to the “Kiel’s a Freeloading Piece of Shit Relief Fund.” It gets the job done. It’s like bottom shelf vodka – distilled enough. On one hand, I don’t have to sleep on the floor or a couch that isn’t long enough for my gangly legs or wide enough for my large torso every night. On the other hand, I’m developing chronic back problems. You win some, you lose some.

Six (and a half, counting San Diego) nights in three months on a real mattress. Do I get any kind of reward for this besides a hunchback when I’m an old man? I expect to have a full-time occupation very soon, and this mattress problem is presenting me with quite the quandary: When I finally begin to accrue some monetary value, what do I devote money to first? A car? How long can I last on Los Angeles’ bus system before two homeless people murder me with their scents? New clothes? God knows I can’t keep cycling through the same Methuen soccer tees once I’m going to a job consistently. A new cell phone? My Walmart Go-phone isn’t exactly a business line. A woman? Certainly a lack of funds has been a convenient excuse the last couple of years for not pursuing any potential female companions, and God knows some girls – especially in this city – won’t hesitate to burn a huge hole in a man’s wallet. Or do I bump all of these necessities down the list and make a fine posture-pedic the first white whale I need to hunt down? Imagine the wonderful thing my life will become once I’m actually comfortable enough to enter R.E.M. sleep!

We’ll see. These are all just crazy pipe dreams for now. A guy can dream, can’t he?

No seriously. I’m really asking you. It’s been a long time for me.

So I Write: The End of My First Blogging Year

One year ago, I sat in front of my dilapidated laptop at my large oak desk  in my childhood bedroom and stared out my dirty back window. The window overlooks the pool which had always been the jewel of the Servideo family – the venue of Fourth of July barbecues, graduation parties, and other miscellaneous events. Fourteen months earlier, I’d recorded one of those cookouts on America’s birthday with my cheap little video camera. In one long, Tarantino-eqsue shot at twilight, I captured everything going on at the party from the front of the house to the pool area: one group playing basketball in the street, my little cousins playing horseshoes on the side of the house, a collection of people stuffing their faces with the food that continues to fly off the grill in the backyard, uncles, aunts, my grandmother, and parents sitting around the fire by the pool and cracking the jokes that befit their characters perfectly, and finally my brother, sister, and our friends playing cards at the patio tables. It’s everyone I could ever hope to spend my time with. It’s everyone I love. It’s my American Dream. The camera cuts to an hour or so later when the stars are out and the Tiki torches are lit. The little kids and big kids alike are lighting their sparklers and waving their glowing wands in the air. To punctuate the moment, a chorus of people begin to cheer, “Happy Fourth of July! Happy Fourth of July!” God bless America.

Sitting in front of my laptop at my desk in my room looking out my back window, I see this zenith of my life playing out as if it’s that perfect summer day all over again. But it isn’t. It’s late September and the red leaves on the giant tree that towers over the pool has already begun to shed. Mom is in San Jose tending to her sick mother, Dad has been living in Malden for seven months, Zach has just finished his first full year of living on his own in Somerville, and Steph is at college in Westfield. I am very much alone. One year earlier, the diaspora had begun. When the summer of 2008 finished, the Servideo’s said goodbye to the classic nuclear family that had existed in its current capacity for 18 years. Zach moved out, Steph started college, and I went back to Boston to finish college. Four months later, I went to Los Angeles for my first stint in Hollywood. One month after that, Dad moved out. The poor dog – talk about abandonment issues!

Sitting in front of my laptop at my desk in my room looking out my back window, I see the 2008 barbecue fade away and give way to another scene of a nondescript date. It’s not a one-time occurrence but a situation in which my family frequently found itself late on Sunday afternoons throughout the summer months. If you’ve read me in the past you may have seen it before:

There’s a raft floating in the pool, and Zach is laying on it. His leisure consists of both tanning and drinking an iced beverage of some alcoholic variety. Sitting on fold-out chairs beside the pool are my mother and Steph. They both have their eyes closed, but they aren’t sleeping. They’re just peaceful. To their right, under the shady cover of a giant spruce that was no taller than my infant self when we first moved into the house, my father cooks on the grill. The grill is covered with a feast that includes pork ribs and steak tips and salmon and balsamic-glazed asparagus. It will feed us all after a long day in the sun. Beside the grill, a radio broadcasts the airwaves of one of Boston’s several classic rock stations. Perhaps The Eagles’ “Take It Easy” is playing. That would certainly fit. All the while observing this situation, I slowly sway back-and-f0rth on a swing on the opposite end of the pool area. The swing has an umbrella to block the sun and seats three. No one regularly uses the swing besides me, however, and when I’m on it alone, I’m able to lay across it on my back, using my feet against the swing’s legs to push myself back-and-forth, back-and-forth. A book rests on my chest, though I don’t read it. If I was really in the mood to read, I would sneak off to the Tenney Castle in the center of town or to Barnes & Noble just over the border in Salem like I have since I’ve been able to drive. There’s no reason to read for entertainment purposes because the conversation amongst my family is more entertaining than anything Vonnegut or Goethe or Dostoevsky has to offer at the moment. Why would I want to leave when I can clearly see this is a moment worth clinging to for as long as I can? While my brother is floating and my mother and sister are tanning and my father is grilling, I’m swaying back-and-forth and staring up at a beautiful blue sky. There isn’t a cloud in sight.

Sitting in front of my laptop at my desk in my room doo doo doo looking out my back window, this scene too fades and gives way to nothing but pain. I cry a little. It’s okay because no one is around to see it. I’m alone. I try to think of something worth devoting my time to. It feels like I’ve exhausted the internet’s potential for distraction. A sliver of an idea hits me. If I, a man who has told people he is or is going to be a writer for several years now, wants to do anything useful with all this emotion, he sure as hell better write about it. Maybe a book will be an outlet. Maybe chronicling this experience could be useful to someone else who sees fit to read about it. One chapter in, several times over, the naivete disappears and I realize anything I write will be driveling, sentimental garbage.

Sitting in front of my laptop at my desk in my room looking out my back window, I don’t know what to do next. If only I could hit a fast forward button and see the good moments that lay ahead. I could see everything that would reveal this lowly moment for the small blip on my life’s radar that it is and marvel at the beautiful moments not too far up the road.

Like taking time out of my day as a substitute teacher to visit my friend’s third grade class, seeing their excited faces when I walk in the room, and hearing them call beg “Mr. Smiley” to read them a story like I’m stuck in a cliche movie.

Like watching my team of resilient teenagers spit in the face of a 6-2 second half deficit and score to make it 6-3, then 6-4, then 6-5…and looking each one in the eyes after the game and seeing strong men spawned out of a group of broken boys who had suffered through a 1-17 fall season only months before.

Like sleeping under a ledge in the middle of the Grand Canyon, where no sound can be heard but the sound of the wind against the mountain side, and feeling like a mighty king who just might be able to conquer this daunting world despite the odds and logic against it.

But I can’t see the future. All I can see is whatever lies beyond the windowpane of my back window from behind my desk in front of my computer in the same bedroom I’ve slept in for 22 years, and until all that other good stuff reveals itself to remind me I have a life worth a damn, there’s really nothing I can do about anything.

So I write, and since this is the twenty-first and not the nineteenth century, I write a blog.

In case you were wondering why.

Excuse Me

Global warming.

The economy.

ADD.

ADHD, for that matter.

What do these things have in common? No, I’m seriously asking you. I don’t what to give you the answer so think hard for a second. Take a sip of coffee if it helps wake up your brain a little bit. I’ll even give you a hint: This post’s title. Eh? Anything yet?

Fine. You’re stupid. I get it.

They’re all blanket excuses. I’ve used some of them and I’m sure you’ve used some of them. They’re convenient explanations for problems when reasoning won’t do.

The Aughts were the heyday of the global warming excuse. Every time a snow flake appeared in April or it rained for an entire month or New England had an easy winter, intelligent conversations regarding meteorological studies all went the same way.

“Can you believe all this rain kid?”

“Nah, dude. Freakin’ global warming, bro.”

In the last couple years, the economy has similarly been the scapegoat of anyone’s financial issues. I don’t have a job because of the economy. I have debt because of the economy. I can’t sell my toe nail collection on eBay because of the economy.

With ADD and ADHD, I saw firsthand as a substitute teacher how many kids will frequently put forth no effort in class because of their “disorders”.

“I need to check your homework. Do you have it?”

“No I didn’t do it. I have ADD.” Great aspirations for this sixth grader.

With global warming, the excuse is relatively harmless. If anything, it’s helpful. If more people think crazy weather patterns are a part of a man-made problem like global warming that we’re in control of, we’ll take the necessary steps to correct the problem because we don’t want things to get worse. (In truth, I believe a lot of this stuff can just be attributed to the fact that weather is unpredictable, especially in the region in which I grew up, New England.)

When it comes to the economy or learning disorders, however, falling back on these excuses can become a serious crutch. Let’s first examine my own situation as it relates to my tendency to attribute the economy to my woes.

“I don’t have a job because of the economy.”

Not true.

While the trickle-down effect of the recession certainly made finding temporary work in the Boston area difficult while I was still living at home, the truth is I earned my college degree in Film & Television. First mistake. I earned that degree at a university in a city that, while it sees Hollywood productions on a frequent basis, is not the place to be for someone who needs to be exposed to the development and writing aspects of the industry for his career aspirations. Second mistake. Finally, upon graduation I didn’t move to the one city where I could sell my skills in exchange for employment. Third mistake. As a result, it wasn’t easy finding work, and understandably so. The 2008 crash has made it easy for me to lament, “The economy is really screwing me,” but the truth is I brought this on myself and would have had difficulty even if Wall Street was steady.

“I have debt because of the economy.”

Kiel, you silly boy.

I have debt because I went to a private school worth more in one year than I’ll make from my first two years of salary rather than attend a perfectly suitable state school. I have debt because I came to Los Angeles for a semester, where a car was needed to get around to my internships, and charged the rental to a credit card for four months. These decisions weren’t financially crippling because the economy tanked. Sure, getting a job right out of college would have helped, but the debt would still be there. It would just be more in control.

I think these blanket excuses can be dangerous. They’re an easy way to avoid responsibility, and no where is it more dangerous than regarding the diagnosis of child learning disorders.. It broke my heart when kids simply wouldn’t try because they knew they had ADD or ADHD and that could get them off the hook. I understand there are some real issues there and I’m not fully educated on the topic, but this disease has become so over-identified that I question its validity. It gives kids who need to be challenged a simple way out.

I couldn’t sit still or keep me mouth until the latter years of high school. Ask anyone who went to school with me growing up. I probably had ADD/ADHD. I was constantly in trouble and challenged by teachers to keep myself in line and focus on my work. Had I been diagnosed with a learning disorder (and by today’s standards I believe I absolutely would have), how would I have responded to that convenient excuse for all my actions? Let’s say I was diagnosed in 7th grade. By the end of that year, my straight As may have become straight Bs. By the end of 8th grade, Cs would have been commonplace.

Maybe I would have worked hard despite the label. I don’t know. There’s no point arguing either way for something speculative. My main issue is allowing people to get out of taking personal responsibility because they’re too lazy to consider the problem for what it might really be. Don’t follow the pattern of blanket excuses that others rely on. You can do more for myself if you understand your contribution to your own problems because that’s what you can fix.

Okay. I’m sorry I became so preachy.

But it’s not my fault. This damn economy makes me cranky.

Short Stories

Some short stories if you get any enjoyment from them, especially when a heralded writer like myself is behind the wheel.

Three New:

A Side of Gravy - A Thanksgiving dinner gone bad.

The Math Problem - One man investigates a mathematical formula used to determine the probability of finding the right mate.

Fly Me to the Moon - On his twenty-third birthday, Eddie Connolly should have been more careful of what he wished for.

Some Oldies:

From my Valentine’s Day series “The Cupid Chronicles” – Cupid Breaks the Rules, Cupid Scolds the Muses, and Cupid’s Last Shot

Beta Male - William Bliss is tired of being second-rate.

It’s the Soundtrack of My Life! - Music can be a trip.

I’m Not Right for You – When you can’t build up the nerve to dump someone, you need to get creative.

It’s Not Me, It’s You

If my ability to be amorous was on trial, a giant pile of evidence would be stacked against me as the prosecutor tried to prove my romantic ineptness – transcripts of painfully awkward text message conversations provided by my cellular provider or stacks of letters kept by middle school love interests. Character witnesses would take the stand against me with damaging stories to tell, i.e. the girl I took to her senior prom, and by the time I dropped off at her house at the end of the night, she was uncontrollably crying.

It’s certainly been a bumpy road on my way to being a 23 year-old man with no real adult relationships under his belt. There was the girl who chose my best friend over me, even though he was in a relationship and I was readily available. There was the girl to whom I lent my coat one night at a house party when she complained of being cold, and she proceeded to go to the basement to give a hand job to one of my friends – while still wearing my coat, nonetheless. Bottom line: I don’t do well with women.

God knows I’m trying. Perhaps that’s the problem, though. Women hate effort. I’ve seen it first hand. They want the cold jerk who pays no attention to them rather than the guy who offers to buy them a drink. Being nice reeks of desperation, and I smell worse than a landfill in the middle of the summer.

I don’t try as much as I use to. It’s easier this way. I don’t go out of my way to try to talk to a new girl when I see her out in the real world because she’s gorgeous and makes my heart rapidly pitter-patter. I’ve tried to woo those types. It’s not worth my time or the damage to my self-esteem.

Last week, I was sitting in the coffee shop when the cute girl sitting across from me brought a piece of Boston cream pie back to her table. I’m a giant fan of the coffee shop’s Boston cream pie, even playing my friends in Wii Golf with slices of pie on the line. When I left the coffee shop that day, I thought it wouldn’t hurt to comment on this delicious pie to the girl who’d just eaten it. I asked her to first unplug my computer from the outlet (which she was sitting next to) before trying to engage her in a wonderful pie-related conversation.

“They have great pie, huh?” I said, nodding at her cleaned plate.

“What?” she answered uncomfortably.

“You got their Boston cream pie. I love it. My friend and I make bets where the loser has to bye a round of pie.”

“Uh…yea. It’s good.”

I know what you’re thinking: Kiel, why do you have to be so weird? You can’t just talk to strangers about pie like it’s no big deal and be surprised when they feel uncomfortable.

Agree to disagree. I want no part in a world where a man can’t politely address a young lady about an inane common interest, no matter what that interest is or how little the two people know each other. I was just being nice. I wasn’t trying to use the pie as a segue to intercourse in the coffee shop’s tiny unisex bathroom. The girl reacted like I had the plague, when all I wanted to do was start the foundation of some type of relationship with a person I see frequently in a place where we both spend a lot of time.

That’s when it dawned on me. For years, I’ve assumed I’m chronically single as a result of my own doing. I must be wrong for every girl I make a pass at. I must be saying the wrong things and coming on too strong, right?

Wrong. When I look closely at the gameday footage to analyze the pitfalls of failed romantic wooings, I can make one obvious observation: if these women can’t handle simple conversation with a carefree and laid back guy, then the problem is on their end. It’s not me, it’s them. That’s the stance I’ll be taking from now on for the sake of my own self-respect.

When I’m still single at thirty-five, well, then I’ll re-evaluate.