I love to write. It’s so fun. Creating a story, whole worlds sometimes out of nowhere, just using words. Lines and squiggly things — letters — put together to make words. It’s kind of amazing… and weird. And ridiculous.

And often really hard.

Hm… I hate to write sometimes. When I’m racking my brain to come up with a plot or just something interesting to say. Writing is all well and good, but you have to write something worth reading, right? But lots of people have different ideas as to what is worth reading. Heck, I don’t even know why I read what I read sometimes. I guess if it’s something that someone is willing to stare at until all the words run out, then it was worth writing, right?

Do I have something to say? Well, yeah… I mean, maybe not always some amazing truth or some passionate cause or occurrence that I feel really needs to be expressed, that might really resonate with a reader or whatever. But just thinking something is funny or wacky or might make someone laugh, maybe brighten their day — that is worth it, too, right?

Of course, after writing one has to get the story in front of the eyes that will be doing the reading. The internet, blogs like this one and whatnot, has made that much easier. Still not effortless, though. I used to think that being published in print was the end goal. If I write something that some company is willing to put on paper and bind together and make into a book — boom. Success! I’m done!

Not true. Sure, some writers reach a certain point when the publisher or an agency or magical fairies will take care of the getting the work out to the readers for them, but that’s rare. And even then, lots of authors blog and Tweet and set up interviews and appearances and tour on their own to let people know their work is out.

I guess it’s never as simple as just writing until I hit “the end” and then that’s it.

Honestly, this has become the hard part. How do I get the word out effectively without becoming a pest? And might all this time talking, blogging, Tweeting, Friendstering (I kid) about my writing be best spent actually writing new stories?

It’s all so confusing. Hm… and perhaps not worth writing about, really. Oops.

Writing… freaking writing. Crap. I just can’t help it.

Hell A is as expensive as it is sunny. Case in point: upon a recent trip to C-bus, OH, I found out that my friend hwose name I shall not say because s/he is a private person, pays $80 less in rent than I do.
But… that’s not really a big deal, is it? Only $80? You expected a much bigger difference to necessitate a “D.J. Versus The World” thing, didn’t you? Well, the devil is in the details…

He/she (not actually a hermaphrodite), for a $80 less than what I pay in rent, gets a three bedroom, two story duplex with a basement, real hardwood floors, a yard, and more — all to him/herself.

Compare this to my room and bathroom in a two bedroom apartment in a complex… and the fact that my $80 more rent is only HALF of the rent I split with my roommate.

Granted, my friend gets a better price but is in Ohio instead of California, buuuut… is that a fair trade? Enough of us think so to allow prices to be this absurd in LA, butbutbut, you know, I have family and lifelong friends who have always stood by me and been rock solid in Ohio. Folks on which I can count, which is worth more than constant sunny, smog-filled days, isn’t it?

Plus, in LA, the first doctor I went to for a checkup called me morbidly obese whereas, in Ohio, I’m just a sturdy fella, edging toward kinda skinny. (Both assessments of weight asinine, but which one do you think I favor? But I digress…)

After checking the Metro site to make sure I’m going to hit that bus stop on the corner at just the right time to make the bus, I still must wait. That is fine. And, to be honest, I have no grounds to complain. The most likely crazy person in the sleeveless Superman tee shirt and dojo-appropriate karate pants was there first.

He’s ignoring me, which is good. Once I’m noticed, I fear I’ll end up a spitting target. Oh, yeah — he’s spitting at various targets, some human.

I just wait it out… soon the bus will come, and… Oh, hold on there. We’re both at the same bus stop. Well, maybe he’s getting on a different… nope.

We both get on the same bus. I prepare to be spat upon before arriving at my destination…

Maybe I’ve always been a nervous person. I’m not sure, as my memory is shockingly, weirdly bad. However, anxiety has been a problem for me for some time now, only getting worse as the years go on and on. Burying my brain in books, movies, TV, and and getting my drink on have historically been my ways of dealing with this. Distraction, basically.

On what I initially thought was an unrelated note, I went to my doctor about a year ago due to a weird kind of problem with my stomach and chest. Discomfort stuff that had nothing to do with food as far as I could tell. After a bunch of tests (three hour breathing into bags thing, ultrasound, pap smear, etc.) revealing nothing, my doctor asked when it was the worst, and, upon reflection, I realized it was when I was driving, an activity I’ve never been a fan of – especially in this gridlocked mess that is LA.

She took this to mean that perhaps my anxiety and stomach/chest mystery pains were indeed related. It had to do with nervous breathing, gulping air. Since there seemed to be no other reasons, it made sense. She prescribed me some Xanax, a kind of happy pill that helps with anxiety and panic attacks.

“It’s like drinking but without getting drunk.”

“What’s the point of that?” I wondered.

(more…)

Nothing puts a damper on a swell restaurant (or bar or strip club — yeah, c’mon) experience more than discovering there’s a bathroom attendant. Well, maybe going alone and wondering if you’re an alcoholic if you don’t talk to anyone, which makes it basically, kind of, sort of the same as drinking alone. Well, maybe that’s not as bad as going out alone and not having the gumption to for ask that whomever you find attractive’s phone number. Well, that might not be as bad as asking for that attractive’s number and getting denied — or getting a fake number. Well… wait. What’s this public diary drivel about again?

Oh! Bathroom attendants. Right.

Look, when I hit the head, I just want to take a piss in peace, not be offered some mints. And I can very easily get my own towel. Seriously, I’m already spending too much money I don’t have to spend on drinks or whatever, I don’t want to feel like I have to tip some guy handing out the towels I’m fine with getting myself in the men’s room.

It’s almost always made worse by the fact that the bathroom attendant is almost always some really old fella with an air of formerly dignified sadness about him. Seriously, to be forced to sit all night where drunk assholes piss and shit is not an ideal way to spend one’s twilight years. Honestly, it’s no way to spend any years in my jerk opinion.

So now, not only does one have to pay a buck or two just to dry one’s hands, one must also be confronted with a possible sad future if things go the way they’ve been going. (No? Just me? … Darn.)

Look, even the nicest bathrooms stink (figuratively, but often literally). It’s no place to spend your weekend evenings, shilling normally free paper towels and offering superfluous mints, gum, and squirts of cologne — especially when you should be enjoying retirement. (Whatever happened to retiring, by the way? Don’t see it in my cards.)

Dickhead world. It’s not fair to either the bathroom attendant or the bathroom user.

I know times are tough, so I don’t want the millions (?) of bathroom attendants to be out of work, but I also don’t want to feel like I have to pay a dollar for a paper towel to the grandfatherly man who just watched me piss.

Why are you stuck in my head, theme from The Neverending Story??? (I haven’t seen this movie in years, yet the theme popped in my head two hours ago and has yet to vacate.)

Seriously, Limahl, I need to get some sleep, but all I can do is sing along to this creepy tune that won’t leave my brain. I’m bobbing my head and percolating and toe tapping, not laying down for bed.

Damn you, Limahl. Damn you.