the tap

Tarsier

They also have two noteworthy distinctions in the world of primates. 1. They are the only purely carnivorous primate on Earth. 2. If put in captivity they severely injure themselves, often to the point of their own death.

This second point is what caught my attention. I’ve long believed that humans were the only animals that while physically and sexually healthy will knowingly take their own lives. And yet, here this little primate does itself in if put in an enclosure or cage. This is such a truism for the animal that they simply cannot be kept in places like zoos.

So is it suicide? Does the tarsier understand what it’s doing when it seemingly tries to end the stress of captivity? Are they just playing out some pre-programmed behavior, set to be executed under certain conditions?

Do we really understand what we’re doing when we do the same thing?

I somehow suspect that we’re just another dumb animal, doing what evolution has told us to do, experienced subjectively as a choice made while operating under the illusion of free will.

But maybe not.

As promised in the 10 best jobs post I made, here are the 10 worst jobs for 2010. Though this is generally a response to the ridiculous official lists that are put out (compared to my list their worst looks like free money for getting blow jobs), I’m also trying to make you feel better about the shitty job you’re probably blowing off while reading this blog post. Enjoy.

10. Sewage Treatment Worker. You work with and process piss and shit and whatever else I happened to flush down my toilet. There’s no tellin’ what you’ll come into contact with as aids infected bits of flesh come down the pipe from your local prison. And you’ll never, ever, wash out that smell.

9. Prison Phone Bank Operator. So, you think your cubicle is a prison? Well as a prisoner working as a customer service agent, your cube is actually your break from your small cell. Just imagine getting prison raped and then having to take angry customer calls for Visa?

8. Biological Waste Handler (Medical Garbage Man). Those little bins with the needles and bloody crap from the operating room has to go somewhere and you’re going to take it there. Here, have a bag of tumors and body fat. Good times.

7. Crime Scene Cleaner. All the fun of the biological waste handler but with none of the safety features. Bits of brains, blood splattered on a wall, entrails dragged through a living room by a hungry family dog, it’s all yours.

6. Animal Inseminator. Just reach right up that horses vagina. Yup, that’s right, all the way up to the shoulder. Now breathe deep, my friend. This is your life.

5. Body Cavity Searcher. Maybe you’re a cop, maybe a prison guard, but whatever the case you are going to search the rectum of the 6 foot 4 inch rapist in front of you.

4. Chicken Killer. Before it comes to the super market, it’s a bird and you must decapitate it, de-feather it, cut out it’s guts, and send it along on a conveyor belt of doom. Lip itching? Don’t scratch it as you’re covered in feathers, blood, feces, and the remnants of your childhood dreams.

3. Spooge Mopper. From the slang dictionary: spooge n.
semen. From the normal dictionary: mopper. n. a worker who uses a mop to clean a surface. Put them together and it means you have one of the shittiest jobs on the planet. All day and (more likely) all night, you clean up the jizz of the sex shop patrons. The only way to get this job is to rape cancer ridden child midgets in a previous life.

2. Child Soldier. While not a common career in the U.S., child soldiers exist on every continent in the world. Chances are, you fell in to this career when a small group of armed thugs showed up in your hometown and forced you to kill your parents right there on the spot. From there they got you addicted to drugs, raped you repeatedly, forced you to kill other kids, and then marched you toward enemies that might not want to kill kids. To add insult to one of the greatest horrors mankind has ever invented, you work on commission, only getting paid when you loot something of value.

1. Whore (all types from crack to call girl). The oldest profession is still the shittiest. It doesn’t matter if you’re sucking dick for crack or sucking crack for cash, your life is pretty much fucked forever and you know it. In fact, it’s all you can think about as that three hundred pound, sweat covered biological waste handler, thrusts his swollen belly against you as you (under orders) call him “big bill the love king”.

See, life’s not so bad…for you.

I wrote this yesterday and decided not to post it. Then this morning during my commute MPR was airing a discussion which involved the stigma of mental illness (set in the context of politics in this case). I don’t like to keep quiet about my problems and I really don’t like feeling like I have to keep quiet. This is my life and if some part of it sucks, I’m going to talk about it. So, I’ve changed me mind. Here’s what I wrote yesterday…

Some days I just cannot get it together. My head is cloudy, my body is tense, and my emotions twist like a knife in my chest. I try to focus and I can only capture a fixed point in space and time for a few seconds before blurring into a catatonic hundred mile stare. Everything is bad, bad, bad and as far as my aching head is concerned, it can really only get worse.

Anyone who’s followed this little blog of mine knows that 2009 was the worst year of my life and that I am currently in a perpetual state of crisis. So it is from within this particular depressive period that I’d like to make a few observations about how I experience depression/anxiety/being nuts.

First, depression seems to equal the absence of hope. If you can find some hope, which I would define as some possibility of a better tomorrow, you can think your way into a functional state. Or at least, I sometimes can if my mood is triggered or heightened by circumstance. This might seem obvious to a sane person but to crazies, hope seems mushy and sappy and useless and naïve. But if you have some of it, then your suffering is finite and you can muster the will to make it through.

Second, having people dependent on you is a blessing and a curse. My kids save my life every single day. I could never hurt myself because I wouldn’t do that to them. I can’t even wallow around in self-pity because I wouldn’t want them to see that. For them I put on a mask of normalcy and pretend to function. On the other hand, they are insanely demanding and quickly tap my already limited energy reserves. They tear a swath of destruction and in their wake I am left standing amongst the rubble; an emergency response team of one. At times like this, I have to remember the upside: they keep me going and I love them more than anything or anyone.

Third, nobody is going to understand BUT that’s not the same as not caring. What’s happening is happening to you and it is not entirely rational (let’s take a moment to recognize that it’s not all irrational either). Don’t expect sympathy, understanding, support, sex, or hugs. You usually won’t get it. But that doesn’t mean the entire world is a cold and indifferent place. Those same people who don’t get it are probably worried about you but think about it, what can they really do? In my particular case, visible sympathy or concern is usually met with deftly deployed minimization and denial tactics. Instead of accepting the help or sympathy, I recoil and insist that I’m just a little tired today.

Finally, if you can trick yourself into getting out of your own head, it will help. Today I read an early draft of a friend’s short story and that made a big difference. It elbowed my analytic mind to the foreground and forced me to do something I’m good at. Suddenly a little pride slipped in and my whole world got a little brighter. It’s simple but it works.

Until this period ends I’m sure I’ll be writing more about depression than film, screenwriting, comedy, etc. and I know it might not be what people want to read. Bummer, it’s what I need to write.

Also, I know my readers are mainly comprised of close family and friends and these posts could be taken the wrong way. So let me clear that up: this isn’t a veiled attempt to get help, you don’t need to do anything, but I do need to have this blogging outlet. Seriously, you do enough by reading this as it justifies the existence of this blog and I find the whole thing…therapeutic.

Today Careercast.com released their ranking of the best to worst 200 jobs in 2010. The best job is Actuary and the worst goes to Roustabout (which just beat Lumberjack). Well, for fun I decided to come up with my list of 10 best and worst jobs for 2010. This list is completely subjective and I’ll start with just the 10 best.

10 Best Jobs For 2010

1. Lottery winner. This is pretty much as good as it gets with lots of money, no work, no obligation to your family, friends, or anybody really. Downside: Strangely high probability of falling apart in some serious way, including the possibility of blowing your head off inside the original batmobile.

2. Entitled Blue-blood Asshole. You were born into a family with infinite resources and have been pampered since birth. You’ve known nothing else which is why you feel you deserve everything you have. Even if you fuck it up, the family is there like a giant safety net. Downside: You’re an asshole.

3. Kept Boy/Girl. Lavish gifts, some sugar-person’s bottomless checkbook, it’s a good life. Downside: You must fuck on command (more of a drawback for girls than guys, assuming the lights can stay off).

4. Dysfunctional Pop/Rock Legend. Sure, you have to play music now and again but that’s an ego stroke you don’t really mind anyway (and if you ask nice you can just lip sync the whole thing). The rest of the time it’s shallow sex, money, drugs, and more sex. Downside: Herpes.

5. Sex Slave/Gimp. Ok, you’re a slave which comes with some baggage. You don’t have freedom is probably the big one. On the other hand, your master wants to keep you alive and that means taking care of your every need. That and ya know, you’re with someone who’s sick enough to have a sex slave which means there’s a good chance you will experience every sexual sensation biologically possible for a human being. Downside: Fecal play.

6. TV/Film Celebrity. Sex slave beat this out because at least as a sex slave your humiliation is private. As a celebrity you will have lots of money and drugs but not quite the same amount of hot/loose groupies that benefit the higher ranking pop star. But hey, you’re rich and beloved and umm, rich. Downside: You have to memorize really long scripts.

7. Porn Casting Director. Attractive people having sex with you isn’t part of the job, it IS the job. Now sure, you’re not rich but you have money and there’s someone sucking your genitals as you read this. Downside: You’re not rich.

8. CEO of a bank that’s too big to fail. I’m not going political on you here, it’s just that as a CEO of an essential part of our economy you not only can’t lose your company do to your management of it, but you don’t even have to give up your bonus. I mean, hey, you’re too valuable and if they didn’t give you millions in bonuses for running the company in the ground you might leave and run a different company into the ground (possibly one that is allowed to fail). Downside: Feigning regret over the trouble you’ve caused for everyone else.

9. Sex toy mold model. Your job is to think dirty thoughts and once aroused, let someone encase your junk in plaster. You watch tv for a bit and they remove the plaster. Some short time later your cock is a dildo and you can literally fuck yourself with it. And you got paid for this! Downside: Shaving junk prior to casting.

10. Executioner. So why is this in the top ten? Because you get paid to throw ONE SWITCH. Sure, some poor bastard dies because of it but still, you showed up and pressed one button or lever or whatever and then you went home. George Jetson had to do more work than that. Downside: Smell of burning hair.

I’ll write the 10 worst soon, I promise.

I’m starting a new category in this blog to journal about my professional life, including everything from ShopNBC to freelance jobs and, of course, my personal artistic projects. In truth, I’ve always intended to write about this but this is a very difficult time in my life with very little time to create, much less talk about it. My hope is that this journal will help get me through this period by keeping my dreams alive, providing me with some focus and perspective, and by preserving my strained sense of self.

For this first entry I think I’ll just list projects that are open or in progress. Sort of a status report as I begin the new year.

1. Butler wedding photos. This job is nearly done. I have one last batch of photos to deliver along with a round of manipulated images. My process for most of them has been pretty simple, just a little cropping and color correction. The manipulated images will be a little more artistic, including creating black and whites, sepias, faux paintings and the like. Novice Photoshop stuff from a professional point of view but I like how they turn out and they’re pretty cool to anyone who doesn’t have that kind of software.

2. Warumzer wedding video. This job is dragging on, partially because I shot so much damned footage (which means many more hours capturing and editing) and partially because I did the job more or less at cost and other things came up that I had to give priority. The footage looks good and it seems it will turn out well. I just need to get it done and out the door.

3. New demo reel. My existing reel is waaaay out of date and as a couple interesting job opportunities are presenting themselves, I need to make this a priority. It’s not that I’m in a huge hurry to leave ShopNBC but when these chances come up, you have to consider them and to do that, you need a reel.

4. Echoes. Oh, poor Echoes. I shot this film years and years ago and it’s wallowed in post production hell ever since. I’ll write sometime about everything that’s gone wrong but for now I’ll just say that it’s all my fault and I need to finish it to get my confidence back. Thankfully there’s only some sound design work, some mixing, and the ending credits left to do. It’s too bad that I’m always going to look at it as a sort of personal failure as I think it’s a good little film, I will just always feel a bit of a sting when I think about how I fucked it up for so long.

5. Microscopic Life. I’ve decided to kill this video podcast series but I have a couple episodes already in the can so I might as well finish them and put them out there. I learned a lot creating this series but due to life changes (which derailed the project) I no longer have the time it would take to keep it going.

6. Producing John Bungert’s solo album. I haven’t produced a CD since Psychopop and I’m excited about this one. John is one of the most talented musicians I’ve ever known and he needs to put out a CD. I recently received some rough recordings from him and am planning to start doing studio work with him soon. This will be a long slow process and I doubt the album will be done anytime soon but it will be worth it. Maybe we can have it ready by next Christmas.

7. Recording some of my own songs. I’ve been writing them, I might as well record them.

8. The Fall Of Dick. This is my current spec feature. It keeps getting shoved onto the back burner but it hasn’t left my head, which tells me I should keep it going. Besides, I’ve written something like six screenplays for other people since The Survival Hypothesis (the last spec I wrote for myself) and it’s time to get another one of my own stories on paper. Who knows, maybe one day I’ll see another one of them on film.

9. Working title: Conduit. This is a web series I’ve been developing with the intention of one day making it with friends. Sort of a micro budget sci-fi thing, all written to work with the filmmaking materials I have on hand (it actually uses these limitations as a stylistic tool, which is fun). God knows when or if I’ll ever make it but the script I count as an active project.

10. My website. I had these lofty ideas about having the site completed by the end of ’09. This didn’t happen and since I get the same amount of traffic as a dirt road in rural Minnesota, I’m not worried about it. But I do want it completed so I’ll keep plugging away at it.

11. ShopNBC. Producing for them is my day job and since it represents the vast majority of the writing, directing, and producing that I do, I guess I should list it.

I have a lot of other projects too but I don’t consider them active. Lots of screenplays, podcast ideas, songs, etc. I may write about them here but I wanted to limit this list to those pressing items that need to be completed sooner rather than later.

Depending on who you are you either look at this list and think it’s huge and that I’m crazy, or that it’s a little sad (not a lot of freelance stuff on it right now). Eh, either way it’s more than I can handle right now so it’s enough.

As I mentioned, this is a rought time for me but I will update this category with progress, musings, etc. as I get time.

Christmas for most is a time of family and presents and good will towards everyone but that fucker who cut you off on the highway. It’s those things for me too but another thread that runs consistently through my Christmas celebrations is some sort of illness. It varies from year to year but somehow, in some way, I will be sick on Christmas, and with the holiday a mere day away, the sugarplums that should be in my head (whatever the hell those are) have been replaced with massive amounts of snot.

As a kid this trend was less of a bother because a kid can be on his or her death bed and still jump up and down screaming when it’s time to open presents. But as the years have progressed and my enthusiasm for everything has diminished and my Christmas responsibilities have increased, it’s become a real drag. And it’s so recurring that one has to wonder if it’s psychosomatic (especially with a neurotic like myself) but at times the illness has been so debilitating that psychological disturbance couldn’t possibly be responsible.

The worst was something like five or six years ago during which I was stricken with the worst case of flu I think I’ve ever had. I had a raging fever, was vomiting constantly, and only spoke in confused broken sentences. My memories from that Yule tide hell are spotty at best but a few moments persist in my memory and playback with the slow motion detail of a near death experience. I remember, for example, being propped up on the couch in a daze as little kids piled presents on me with screeching enthusiasm. I also remember being expected to open presents and while I got an iPod, the flood of warmth I felt was a shivering surge of fever and I believe I lost consciousness. Finally I remember being in the car late on Christmas Eve as Shannon drove us to her parents house. I was doubled over in pain, moaning and crying, begging her to take me to the hospital.

So if it’s just a cold this year, I figure that’s pretty good. It could have been swine flu instead which, with my holidazed history, would probably kill me. And so, as you gather with friends and family, know that in my cloudy snot filled head, I’m wishing you and yours a healthy and happy holiday.

Merry Christmas.

Ok, if someone actually read my blog, that person might be quick to point out that I posted three entries and then disappeared. If that person were also an authority on blogging, social media, or self-indulgent cries for help, it might also be noted that this is a great way to guarantee that I never get a reader or that a general lack of response de-incentivized the process for me and without a quick easy reward I’d never continue (again, destroying any chance of getting a reader).

Well fuck that guy. I’ve said from the outset that this blog is for me to spew words when my words need spewing and like most spew, it is probably not meant for consumption by anybody but the dog (or, depending on your definition of spew, a girl who swallows). The truth is, 2009 has been the worst year of my life and I’ve just been too busy or too depressed to post anything. So fuck you, theoretical opinionated bastard. I’ll spew when I’m good and ready (which is right now, I guess).

It’s hard for me to elaborate on why 2009 has been so terrible as some of it is classified but in broad strokes, it’s something like this: Every second of every day is spent doing what I have to do with no end or reward in sight. Now sure, lots of people say that sort of thing but in my case, it’s absolutely true. I work all the time, I’m broke, I have four kids, my wife works long hours, we can’t afford daycare, everything we own is broken, the cat’s bulimic, my wife swears like a sailor, I’m only as good as my last tv commercial, I work artistically unrewarding freelance jobs ‘cause I’m broke but I have to stay up late to finish them because of the demanding kids, I dream of independent projects but have no time to create them, my commute is an hour long, there’s a million reasons we can’t have sex, there’s nowhere to masturbate, I haven’t been out socially during this presidency, the answering machine is maxed out with collections calls, I have unread mail from July, and I’ve become very fat.

I just keep thinking to myself, “this is how it happens. Life just wears you down until your dreams are forgotten and the lawn is a topic of serious concern.” And maybe that is how it goes for some. But what I’m noticing about myself is that even without a chance to create, the inspiration to try is ever present and in that observation I find some hope. Maybe this stage of my life can be waited out and when I emerge at the other side I’ll take a breath and find I’m still me and I can still make…things.

Until then, I endure in semi-silent suffering, crushed by the weight of innumerable responsibilities, serving in perpetuity, trapped in my head, and sucked dry by parasites.

There is what I would call an “epic” amount of bullshit about mental illness out there. From the coldly clinical to the touchy feely helpless victim crap, you can easily get lost in the minutia with a simple Google search. And at various points I’ve plunged into the murky waters of online psychology journals and patient support sites to either enhance my own understanding of myself or sometimes, yes, to get a little sympathy from people with similar issues.

But I don’t do that anymore. The science end is interesting but useless on a personal level and the fellow crazies are often locked in a hopeless pattern of sympathy dependence. Really, if your mind or emotions are distorting your world on a day to day basis and you’re seeking something constructive to get you through, there’s not much there beyond statistical data, the hug seeking chimps behind the numbers, and a sea of aggressive snake oil salesmen.

My personal diagnostic history, ever changing according to which therapist I’ve been talking to, goes something like this: PTSD, OCD, Generalized Anxiety Disorder, and Depression. But let’s forget those fun little diagnostic labels and focus on the truth of my reality, most of the time I’m dragging my tense and twisted insides through the day with no hope of feeling anything but that debilitating ache of perpetual stress. Everything from going to work to eating lunch or writing this blog is preceded by a dark storm cloud of dread. It colors my thinking, my emotional reactions, my behavior, and my view of…Well…Everything. It’s so omnipresent in my life that I often deal with the paradox of not noticing the way it’s coloring my life because anxiety is the noise floor/base line that must be tuned out to function.

But I’m lucky, I do function. In my teens and early twenties I self medicated (anxiety has given me a heavy predisposition to drug addiction) and now as a bonafide grownup, I’m simply medicated. I have a rich creative life, a decent job, a wife, kids, house, cat, car, etc. and all of it achieved in spite of the tons of weight pressing down on my shoulders. Yay triumph over adversity! But the weight is still there and the accomplishments are all undermined by the life draining despair that lingers no matter what positives exist in my life.

Imagine, you just got a blow job on your private jet as you get ready to parachute into a pile of money surrounded by your adoring fans. I assume most people would feel absolute bliss but if you’re like me, you’ll ruin it. Your twisting guts will bring a hint of darkness and some thought will materialize. Maybe it’s “I’ve become the shallow pop star I have always mocked, I’m horrible”, or it could be “in spite of all of this I’m eventually going to die and be forgotten”, or perhaps it’s as simple as “shit I’m running out of cigarettes.” Whatever it is, it seems like the thought creates the anxiety and not the other way around. So whatever you happen to achieve in life, you can’t completely enjoy it because of the intrinsically dark nature of…well…everything. Like everyone, you believe your conclusions are correct and that your emotions are a reaction to something real.

Sounds pretty fucking horrible, huh? Well, it is. I hate it and I envy all those empty drones milling around in their shallow lives, enjoying every second of it. I envy them even while I enjoy hating them. But I can’t be like them and in reaction to that fundamental truth, I seem to have compensated by building a personality, identity, and outlook that derives satisfaction from being a dark hateful bastard. And you know what? It, combined with a single non-destructive escape I’ll get to in a moment, works.

If you can’t join ‘em, beat ‘em. Or maybe just verbally assault their every assumption. Shock them with whatever you can get away with. I mean, if I couldn’t be part of the happy crowd, I’d embrace others who shared my cynical view of life. Punks, outcasts, dissidents, anti-heroes, villains, crass comedians, subversives, debasers, weirdoes, freaks, monsters, losers, beaten artists, poets, mutants, bikers, rockers, geeks, crazies, addicts, fringe intellectuals, sexual deviants, these are all my people. We are the marginalized, the shunned, the rejected, and without ever saying it, we’ve all agreed to not judge each other. We’ve created a community to get the small sense of belonging we require without our assumptions being challenged and this is both effective and self perpetuating.

The second thing that’s kept me alive is perhaps a little more unique to me. Somewhere inside, past the darkness, curled up between my frontal lobe and the largely neglected pleasure center of my brain, is my happy place. This is where I chronically daydream about unwritten characters, unfilmed movies, unrecorded songs, potentially doctored photos, possible blog entries, and amusing Facebook status updates. I spend as many conscious hours in this happy place as I do dealing with the external world and this will never change. It can’t. I’m completely addicted to the fantasies the creative process enables and it’s this one thing, this one precious and sacred little thing that has expanded my identity beyond my angst and given me the hope and pride I need to survive.

That’s why it’s ok that I’m not that successful, that most movies remain unmade, and that nobody is going to read this blog. It’s also why I don’t give a fuck that you have some harsh criticism of me or this blog entry. It’s why I don’t care if I offend you or use the word fuck constantly. It’s even why I don’t care that I’m posting this highly personal information on the internet. The combination of being stuck outside the mainstream and locked in my own head has had the benefit of setting me free.

So there it is, a broad stoke view of my experience with being nuts. Obviously, I shared this because of the time I spent in my head composing it. And maybe your experience is different, maybe you can’t relate, maybe you sympathize, or maybe you think I’m wrong. Great, I’m very happy for you. And I hope you don’t mind that I don’t give a fuck what you think. Unless you like what I said, then I’d love to hear it (ok, coping mechanism three is an addiction to praise).

We bought our first house three years ago and like most new home owners, we didn’t own any of the tools one uses to maintain a privately owned space. From items as small as a screwdriver to leaf and snow blowers, we started acquiring the necessary items for private dwelling upkeep from item one.

Last year I got my first chainsaw to take care of a branch that had fallen during a storm. I had tried my father-in-laws electric saw and didn’t like it. No, I opted for a moderately priced black and green thing with a mid sized blade and read enough of the manual to learn how to mix the gas and oil and start the thing.

I was a little disappointed in that they are kind of hard to start. I wanted to yank the cord in a standing position, have the saw roar to life, rev it a few times for effect, and proceed to do the Leatherface dance of holding it over my head while shaking it back and forth. I was finally able to do the dance but only after setting it on the ground, adjusting the choke, and yanking until my arm hurt. The dance was still fun but it lacked any badass horror movie villain spontaneity.

That one fallen branch aside, I’ve mainly regarded the chainsaw as a fun prop or possible weapon during an impending zombie apocalypse (though the slow starting thing has been noted so I won’t count on it as a quick draw weapon). I’m not useful or outdoorsy in the typical male sense and whenever I do have to take out the saw I wish I’d had the foresight to buy a clown outfit, a propeller beanie, and a pair of stiletto heals in my size. I mean, I look like an artsy dork so the chainsaw doesn’t fit anyway. Why not take it to the next level?

Well, today I found that the reason our power went out last night was that half a tree fell over and landed in our neighbors yard. It was my tree and I already felt bad for having knocked out everyone’s power (I know the storm did it but I still felt a sense of responsibility) so I decided I had to clean it up.

I can’t stress enough what an enormous task this is. The tree wasn’t huge but at its base it had a circumference of a foot or so and there were a lot of really thick branches. Now most people in small town Minnesota would rally their friends and family together and a team of blue-collar macho men would drink beer as they labored together in the hot sun. More well to do families would hire similar guys through a local company to do the job but without the beer. Shannon’s parents aside, I don’t know fuckin’ anybody in this town and I’m poor enough that I just try to ignore the check engine light in my car. So out I went in a pair of sandals, cargo shorts, a Japanese t-shirt that spelled out the abbreviation YMCA as Young Muslim Christian Atheist, and my Buddy Holly glasses for eye protection.

The work was exhausting as the wood literally smoked as I cut it. Chainsaws vibrate like mad and while they aren’t all that heavy, you do have to apply pressure and after a couple hours my arms felt like jelly. My heart pounded in my chest, I was drenched in sweat and that I’m in my 30’s meant a heart attack wasn’t out of the question. It was time for another break (previous breaks had more to do with throwing the chain, searching for an important looking nut that had fallen off the saw, or taking care of the kids). I sat smoking, exhausted and defeated, taking some small comfort in an iced coffee as I surveyed the remaining work from my patio.

The neighbor cater-cornered to my back lot, an old guy who likes to shoot crows and squirrels with a pellet gun from his back porch and who’s name I can never remember, yelled over and asked the strangest thing, “do you want me to sharpen your chainsaw?”

There are people out there who are well prepared for adulthood. They learned about cars, plumbing, cooking, laundry, taxes, masonry, financial planning, time management, organic hair conditioners, small engine repair, and chainsaws. I, on the other hand, make shit up and actually ran my chainsaw initially without knowing they require something called bar oil (it lubricates the chain while you use it…though I’m not sure how). So I admit that while I had heard that chainsaws can be sharpened, it seemed like something I’d never need to do. I mean, that has to be for people who use their chainsaws day in and day out, and not for someone who only wants to use it in his next short film.

He set the chainsaw in a vice and using a file apparently specifically designed for this task, made his way around the chain counting his strokes on each link thingie. He mentioned his trailer was “up north” which opened up an opportunity for me to ask where someone would bring something like brush and logs for disposal. He let me in on what I regard as a small town secret: there is some private property just past the local sewage processing plant where the owner allows locals to dump grass clippings and brush. According to “old guy”, the piles of each are huge and it’s free to all. I thanked him and turned away, suddenly self-conscious about my t-shirt (a shocker since this is the sort of small town old guy I normally love to make uncomfortable with weird shit).

Oh my god what a difference a sharpened blade makes! The wood no longer smoked as I tried to cut it. Instead the saw ripped into each branch with ease. And while I was suddenly being covered with much more sawdust than before, I now understood why there hadn’t been much to begin with. The next three quarters of the felled tree was cut up in the same amount of time it had taken to smoke through the first quarter and while I was sore and exhausted, I also got to wipe sweat away with a real sense of accomplishment. I was so grateful that I finished up by getting out a rake and adding all the really tiny branches to the pile.

So I’m not a native and I don’t have a dozen friends here to help drink my beer but in some simple symbolic way “old guy” opened the possibility of maybe one day bridging the gap between me and everyone else. He also reminded me that there’s a learning curve to life and arrogant assholes like myself need to remember that crazy old people with pellet guns possess a wealth of useful, provincial knowledge. And while I never planned on being an adult, now that I’m here I need to learn things like the importance of proper chainsaw maintenance.