updatez (with a z)

It's a koala. Eating an apple. Unrelated.

A lot has been happening as of late, and instead of posting separately on all these sorts of things, I'm just going to launch into them in one snaking post. With the Anchor band playing Creedence, the rain drumming on the roof, the thunder tolling like church bells, and the mellow lighting pooling in my coffee, let's see how much I can uncover until the battery on this netbook dies.

Tazza Mia. It's been over a year since I've been employed, and I'm still enjoying what I do despite the frustrations and chaos that characterize it all. While there's a great deal of stress (everyone who has any sort of responsibility within the company has been suffering all sorts of stress-related ailments), there's nevertheless an inherent sense of pride and privilege. While coffee may not be any sort of career (unless you're in the big wigs game), I'm proud to be with a coffee company that makes an effort to produce the best coffee in Cincinnati. We do have the best coffee, though we're still struggling to bring ourselves to being the best coffee shop. I'm always proud when people from all around the world come into our coffee shop and get all up in arms about how good it is. When Italians come into your store blown away at the quality espresso over against the widely available coffee at each city block (you know who I'm talking about), there's a sense of pride, the pride of belonging to something legitimate, something that isn't just the run of the mill. When tourists snap pictures of your poorly-poured rosettas and discombobulate hearts, or when your "postmodern latte art" (i.e. downright awful and inarticulate) gets praised, you're going to have a sense of pride. No matter the constant "riding of the wave" (a wave that seems to go nowhere at all), at least I've got that. Despite the frustrations and stress, I'm able to pay my bills and live within my means, and I'm privileged to work with so many awesome people. I've made great friends through this coffee shop, and I've lived and worked with friends I'd call close as brothers, and I know that I'm privileged to work with such great and enjoyable people. Most people talk about how they hate the people they work with, how they can never get along with them; but I find that I genuinely value those I work with, and I know it goes beyond my own amicability.

Writing. I've finished the first book of my zombie serial, as well as about 1/4 of the second book, but to be entirely honest I don't have much energy to keeping it going. This happens sometime, and it's not a bad thing: most writers have 5-6 unfinished books for every finished book. It's a regular occurrence and no reflection on the author or the work written. It's not that zombies find no place in my heart (oh, they have a place, and it is dark, very dark), but I just don't feel like writing about them anymore. On top of this, including as characters real people from my life (with their permission, of course: no one wants a lawsuit on their hands) served to sap the creative energies from the story. It's always a good rule of thumb to keep characters fictional, and not just for legal self-preservation. I'm currently not writing anything substantial, fiddling with things here-&-there, but that's all part of the process, it's progress, it's growth and development. The good news for you, the Reader, is that those "Writing Posts" with the Roman numerals to make them classy won't be bludgeoning this blog for some time.

The Claypole House. Amos moved out about a month ago (though his bed's still here; he's been sleeping on a sofa in his Loth House Lair), and Ams is slated to move out around the weekend of September. Blake, Andy & I have decided to keep living together, but the hope is that our days at the Claypole House will grind to a close. We want a change of scenery, want to get out of the West Side, want to find a different pace. We've been scouring north and east of Cincinnati looking for some different places, and we've got our eyes set on a place in Norwood. The "weekly updates" will cease to be when we move out of the Claypole House, signifying an end of an era. I may keep something similar going, but these posts are becoming a drag to write. A simple solution would be spending my days doing something different, something exciting; but, alas, my personality type thrives off regularity & ritual, and that is, of course, why I'm writing this post at The Anchor.

My Health Issues. The lymphoma scare has passed, an incredibly difficult season rolling to a close. The effects of it on my psyche have been two-fold: 1) paranoia, and 2) revitalized clarity. My own anxiety issues kicked into high-gear following that incorrect diagnosis and the lingering hell of waiting to see just what was wrong with me. Now that all that's passed, the paranoia has been dwindling down, too. I was this close [I'm putting my trigger finger and thumb 'bout an inch apart and typing with two fingers] to becoming a hypochondriac; but things have been simmering down, and I'm able to thank rationally. I've had a gauntlet of tests done (X-Rays, urine & blood tests, lung tests, etc.) and each one has given me a clean bill of health. I'm a healthy 25-year old guy, and in some ways I'm much healthier than others my age. It's been said that the very word "cancer" refocuses one's vision; and though I didn't, thank God, have cancer, I spent a decent amount of time being told that I did and thinking that I did, the end result being this very refocusing. I've been doing a lot of thinking about my life, who I want to be, who I'm called to be, my purpose and all that. I've been finding areas in my life where I need to grow up, stop being selfish, start plugging my life into something greater than Me. Some say that life is short so we'd better experience all of it; in the same vein but somewhat different, I'd say life is too short so we'd better make something of it while we can. When my time comes, I don't want my life to have been lived for me but for something greater than me, something beyond me. As the song goes, "I was raised up believing I was somehow unique, like a snowflake distinct among snowflakes, unique in each way you can see; and now after some thinking, I'd say I'd rather be, a functioning cog in some great machine." (it's Fleet Foxes, so ya know)

There's more that I could write (far more!), but my coffee's cold, the rain's passed, and my laptop's battery is glowing orange. That's not a good sign. I never really know how to end these things (could be why my books tend to roll on long after they should end) so, um, bye?