So, here we are in 2005, with 2004 receding in the rear-view mirror. Woo.

I’m having a hard time getting any traction here for the new year. I think you can’t help but evaluate yourself and your position in life at the start of a new year, and my evaluation has me in a bit of a funk. 2004 wasn’t exactly my year and it’s hard now to get up for 2005.

I remember this time last year, thinking that “this is going to be my year” and feeling very optimistic about it. Now, not so much. 2004 was just another year, really no better or worse than the last. I just kept my head down and went through it and it sort of slid by. No low points, really, but also no real high points. It was just another year, certainly not the “My year” I held out hope for. And thinking back on it, I’m pretty sure I had the same thought on 1/1/03 … and 1/1/02 … and maybe even 1/1/01. I think we want to be hopeful as we start a new year and anticipate great things — but I think more dreams are dreamt than are lived.

I’m 43 now, I’m at the age where I should be “what I want to be when I grow up” — and I’m not. Not even close. I’ve had the Hollywood agent and it got me nowhere. I have multiple industry contacts and they’re getting me nowhere. I’m over the hill as a sitcom writer and can’t make any headway as a movie writer. I’m grown up and I’m not living my dream. Instead, I’m currently unemployed and can’t even find a new gig as a software trainer — which was never my dream or my passion in the first place, just the most lucrative paycheck I can swing.

So I’m kind of down now. I’m not terribly excited or hopeful for 2005. It’ll pass, I’m sure, I’ll climb out of it and keep my head down and get through the year again, but I just can’t get into it this time. I hope this year will be a good one but I suspect it’ll just be 365 days of more of the same.

I’m tired of more of the same. I’d like to have a great year for a change, a life-changing year, one that I’ll look back on and say “that’s where things turned around for me.”

Universe, Fate, whatever you call yourself, I’m looking at you. It’s time to step up. I think I’m due, motherfucker.

I got coal. Screw Santa.

I just finished wrapping one of Beth’s Christmas presents. It measures about 4″ x 4″ x 1″, it took me three tries to get it right, and I used about six square yards of wrapping paper and four linear feet of tape doing it.

The Christmas Spaz is in town.

Update:

I just wrapped a second gift. Two tries this time. I’m improving, but need to remember the old construction adage “Measure twice, cut once.” I keep reversing it.

This is an actual telephone conversation I just had:

My phone rings:

***Ring***

Me: Hello?
Him: Hello?

Hello.
Hello.

(beat)

Hel-lo?
Hello?

Hello!
Hello.

I can do this all day, you know. Hellooooo.
Hello.

(beat)

Uh… I think I have the wrong number.
No shit.

***click***

Christmas is right around the corner and as usual I’m not quite up to speed yet.

Shopping done? Nope.
Shopping started? Nope, don’t even have a list yet.
Cards sent? For which year? I’m still working on 1986.
Christmas lights up on the house? Nope, haven’t even untangled ’em yet.
Wreath mounted on the grill of the truck? Nope, still searching the garage for it.
Christmas tree up yet? Yes! Woo.

I have a little list of things that have to happen every year for it to start feeling like Christmas to me, and many of them either haven’t happened yet or happened when I wasn’t looking.

I have to hear these songs on the radio:

• The Kinks – Father Christmas
• Band Aid – Do They Know It’s Christmas?
• Bruce Springsteen – Santa Claus Is Comin’ To Town
• The Eagles – Please Come Home For Christmas
• Elmo and Patsy – Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer

And I have to see these shows on TV:

• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer
• Frosty The Snowman
• It’s A Wonderful Life
• How The Grinch Stole Christmas

I haven’t heard most of the songs and I’ve missed all the TV shows, and because of that it feels more like mid-March to me than it does Christmas. But last night we decided to get seasonal anyway and put our Christmas tree up … and we were stymied right out of the gate.

Part of our tree-assembling and -trimming family tradition is that we play our Taco Bell The Stars Come Out for Christmas CD while we do the fake tree assembling and decorating. I picked it up at Taco Bell five or six years ago and it has become a seasonal member of the family. It’s a stellar CD, featuring Rush Limbaugh reading ‘Twas The Night Before Christmas, Kathie Lee Gifford singing It’s Beginning To Look A Lot Like Christmas, Michael Martin Murphey (of Wildfire fame) singing Two-Step ‘Round The Christmas Tree, and other such fabulous recordings. Listening to it really makes you want to hurry up and finish whatever you’re doing so you can turn it off. So before we cracked the box we keep the fake Christmas tree in, I went looking for the Taco Bell CD. And couldn’t find it.

Christmas almost didn’t happen.

But then we regrouped and went with our alternate Christmas CD, the Wonderbra Naughty or Nice Holiday Favorites. With performers like Tanya Tucker (What Child Is This?), Wayne Newton (Silent Night), and Andy Williams (Joy To The World) its lineup isn’t nearly as impressively painful as the Taco Bell disc, but it still served to hurry us along.

So now Christmas is officially under way around here. We’ll spend tonight unpacking and untangling all the strings of lights we decorated the house with last year before we give up and throw them away in disgust, and then tomorrow we’ll go out and buy all new ones and I’ll wait ’til sunset to start crawling around on the roof and putting them up so I can be working in complete darkness before I finish and maybe fall off the roof and bust my skull open. Then, if I survive that, I’ll put the wreath on my truck and maybe buy a smaller one for my bike. And I’ll start my shopping a week or so after that.

‘Tis the season!

Jim wants new content. Good lord, you people are never satisfied. It’s a big internets, why you gotta be hacking on me alla time? Okay, fine, here’s a winter quiz for you from the fine folks at lablogs, inspired by the cold snap we’re having here in SoCal:

1. Do you own a winter jacket?

Yes. No. Sort of. I used to be a snow skiing fool back in the pre-marriage days and I’m sure I have a parka and/or ski suit or three tucked away in the garage somewhere, but on the other hand I also weigh about a Zoe more now than I did back then so there’s no way those things fit me anymore. I bought a cheap-ass coat at Target in preparation for my Chicago trip last year, so I guess that qualifies.

2. Do you like the winter mountain sports? Skiing, boarding, sledding, snowshoe, etc…

Yes. No. Sort of. Like I said above, I used to be a skiing fool. One winter, I went to Mammoth nearly every weekend of the season. Since Beth turned up pregnant with Zoe, though, we just haven’t been. First Beth was pregnant, and that whole swollen womb thing tends to get in the way during the later months of the pregnancy. Then there was the infant thing. Then there was the new famliy thing. And then later there was the out of shape and out of the habit of skiing thing… And so I just haven’t gone skiing for something like 9 years. Maybe this year.

3. Big Bear, Mammoth or other?

Yes. No. Please? Big Bear is close so it’ll do for a quick in-and-out, but it’s too small. Mammoth is king if you want a real SoCal ski experience. And if someone wants to pay for a vacation for me in Utah or Tahoe or Colorado or Alaska or Switzerland or heliskiing or something like that, well I’d sure appreciate it.

4. Favorite hot drink?

Coffee. Black and bitter, like my women.

5. Heater setting?

69. Shut up.

6. At night: more blankets, more pajamas, more heater or all of the above?

Can I request additional nubile bedmates? No? Okay, more PJs, I guess. If it’s too cold for just blankies, then putting on a T-shirt usually does the trick.

7. Do you go out and enjoy the cold or bundle up and stay inside?

I went scuba diving yesterday when the forecasted high was 56. What do you think?

(Actually, I didn’t get to dive because of the weather — but I did have an adventure on the trip over. There’s another entry in there … somewhere.)

8. Cold temps. Stay for a while or bring back the 70s?

Stay for awhile. But stop fucking raining already. Cold + drippy = sucks. And that applies to more than just the weather.

Beth just walked in from a quick trip to the grocery store and announced “I’m making something new for dinner tonight!”

Emptying the bag to put the purchases away, I find that the total grocery store haul is:

• Four cans of tuna
• One box of Kellogg’s Mini-Wheats
• A loaf of Roman Meal bread
• A can of Crisco vegetable shortening.

I’m afraid to ask she’s making.

Oh look, it’s another goofy poll-type entry, stolen from Gavin (and edited for length — because nobody has the patience to read 40 questions about anyone, not even about me).

How did you get the idea for your journal name?

Someone at my last job once sent out a company-wide email announcing that “There’s pie in the lunchroom.” Since the company had employees in five states and two countries at the time, I thought that was a pretty stupid email to send to people who couldn’t possibly get to the pie or care that it was there. When I investigated, I found that there was indeed a pie in the lunchroom. Just a pie: no plates, no silverware, no knife with which to cut the pie — just a lonely pie in the middle of an otherwise empty table. I’d been playing with the idea of starting a blog; that email gave me the title and pushed me over the edge into doing it.

What song are you playing now?

My iTunes is set on Party Shuffle right now, playing songs at random from my mp3 collection. REO Speedwagon’s Roll With The Changes just transitioned into Kenney Chesney’s Young.

What color underwear are you wearing?

Flesh colored. Figure it out.

What does your mom do for a living?

Retired schoolteacher now working as an actress in TV commercials. You’ve probably seen her in one.

What does your dad do for a living?

Semi-retired dental technician. I’ll get a family discount when I need dentures.

What is your pet’s name?

Which one? Two dogs: Billy and Suki. Six cats: Gable, March, Sparkle, Wanda, Cosmo, Nina.

What was the last concert you attended?

Tears For Fears at the Universal Amphitheater.

What was the last movie you saw?

The Spongebob Squarepants Movie. I took Zoe to see it this morning and slept through most of it.

What was the last tv show you watched?

A documentary about NFL tailgating. It made me hungry for barbeque.

What is your fave piece of jewelry?

The 8-gauge 1/2″ CBR in my right ear.

What is to the left of you?

An old computer/monitor, piles of old mail, a stapler, old CD jewel boxes… A mess, basically.

What was the last thing you ate?

Vanilla Haagen Dazs ice cream.

Write a song lyric that’s in your head?

’cause she gives it away
& you’re fascinated by her
& she does it again
with simple & brilliant desire
& she gives it away
& you’re fascinated by…

— Beth Hart’s By Her, which happens to be playing right now.

Where is your significant other right now?

She went to bed about 10 minutes ago.

What shampoo do you use?

I’m bald, you asshole, I don’t use shampoo.

When was the last time you cut your hair?

I shave my head, you asshole, I don’t need to cut my hair.

Are you on any meds?

Considering the last two answers, maybe I should be. But seriously, yes: Xalatan for glaucoma.

What shirt are you wearing?

A grey sleeveless T-shirt from Target.

What time is it?

1:48 a.m. PST

What is your fave frozen treat?

Cash.

Is it just me or does the chorus of U2’s new song Vertigo have the exact same progression as the chorus of The Supremes’ Keep Me Hangin’ On? I don’t like the song all that much anyway, but I really can’t listen to it when I keep half-hearing Bono sing “You don’t really love me, you just keep me hangin’ on…”

Sigh… And the harrassment begins. Snide comments from Beth in bed, imploring comments from Jim in — well, in the comments section, more snide comments from Beth on the phone: “We need a new entry, we want a new entry, feed us a new entry!” Dammit, people, this is why I resigned from my position as a columnist with the L.A. Times in the first pla– Oh, wait. Never mind, I was in subscription sales, not a columnist. Nevermind…

Anyway, new entries are requested. So fine, here ye be:

What’s cooking? Pecan Pie. Which I guess is more an answer to “What’s baking?” but who’s counting. So, yeah, Thanksgiving is just around the corner, so I’m whipping up my traditional Thanksgiving Pecan Pie from my own personal side-of-the-Karo-Syrup-bottle recipe. It’s in the oven right now, cooking baking, and it’s been in there for the last hour and 15 minutes. Which concerns me, because the recipe only calls for 50 – 55 minutes — or until knife inserted halfway between center and edge comes out clean.

WTF? What the hell does “clean” mean? Spotless, as though it just came out of the dishwasher? A-in-the-restaurant-window clean? Clean by my standards? The way it’s been coming out for the last fifteen minutes: coated with clear Karo syrup so it kinda looks clean if you ignore the clear coat? How the hell are you supposed to know when this shit is done?

I set the alarm for 55 minutes and checked it then and got the wet/coated/maybe clean version, so I’ve been sticking it back in for “another five minutes” with the same results each time for the past 20 minutes. Screw it, I just took it out; I don’t think the crust could take any more. If the middle ain’t done I’ll just feed it to the relatives.

Yes, this pecan pie is my holiday tradition and I go through this every year, and every year I forget how it turned out last year. So I guess I’m right on track.

What else is cooking is me not working. I still haven’t found a job yet. Please hire me. If you’re looking for a kick-ass corporate/technical trainer, please hire me. Or dishwasher. Whatever.

What else is cooking is writing. I try not to talk too much about my writing here because there are few things more boring or more precious than a “writer” babbling on about their writing, and I don’t want to be that guy. Also, because I frankly haven’t been doing much lately. At all. None, really.

But I’m back in the saddle again now, or at least I’m trying to get my feet in the damned stirrups. I’ve actually been outlining a screenplay idea I’ve been stalling on forever and writing some pages and at least doing more than getting ready to get ready to do it. Which for me is progress. I haven’t written anything new in a really long time. That bothers me.

So I’ve been trying to be productive and sort of halfway succeeding. I feel like I’m really unfocused and spinning my wheels and pinballing from one thing to the next (Outline! No, character sketch! No, write! No, outline!), but at least I feel like I’m in some kind of motion.

And that old ass-in-chair ailment started rearing its ugly head again. This whole internets thing is a real distraction, you know? And the TV. And the fridge. And the internets. Etc. When you’re having to work to get something down on paper everything else seems really, really attractive. Who knows, maybe Jim updated his blog since 15 minutes ago. Let’s check!

I realized that I can’t work at home, at least not right now when I’m still trying to get back into the flow again. Fortunately, I have my own personal 8-year old laptop with ScriptThing on it that I can pose with at Starbucks. Unfortunately, I can’t find it.

And how sad is that, that I can lose a friggin’ laptop? Unbelievable.

Anyway, after searching everywhere and not finding the laptop, I decided to just get a new one. Or, because I’m such a cheap-ass (and out of work), get one that’s new to me. Used, in other words. So off to Craigslist I went and found a nice little PIII 500 Mhz Dell for $300 that’s half the size of my old work laptop, came loaded with XP, and works just fine. Sweet.

Except the battery won’t hold a charge. And the batteries go on eBay for between $50 and $130. The laptop works fine as long as I’m plugged in, but that limits me to posing stands with power outlets. I needed a battery so I could be truly portable and impressively untethered at my Starbucks unveiling. So I bid on one on eBay and somehow won the auction for $.99. Yes, ninety-nine cents. I haven’t seen one of these go for less than $49.95 but somehow I was the only bidder at $.99. Sweet. The shipping was 10 times the battery itself. Ha. So for a $301 investment I’m mobile again and Starbucks ready.

But you know, I’ve always hated that whole Starbucks thing. It’s just coffee, people, get over it. The few times I’ve been in there (for beans, not for a tall mochachino grande latte with half caff decaff and a vanilla bean twist) I’ve just been baffled by the crowds and the laptopped people “working” and the whole “Ooh, I’m at Starbucks” thing. It’s pretentious and annoying and it’s SO not me.

Fortunately, we live two blocks away from Valley College here in, well, The Valley, so I figured I’d set up in the library there. Nice and quiet, no poseurs, and best of all: no internet connection, no TV, no phone. So I packed up and went there and found a little cubby with an electrical outlet I could work in and got all set up and it was oh so nice and quiet. Really quiet. No, I mean really quiet. So quiet that I was the annoying one with my clicking keyboard. So much for that idea.

I moved on. Oh look, the cafeteria. I gave that a shot and it worked out really well. Well, as long as you ignore the circle of kids hacky-sacking just outside the window I was sitting at, the hacky-sackers who had zero control of their hacky and kept slamming into the wall and smooshing their faces against the window next to me and basically acting like college kids at lunch. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

So today I tried the Starbucks thing. And, damn it, I liked it. Somehow all the music and hustle and bustle and noise and people there didn’t distract me. In fact, it helped. I normally can’t write with music on (which bugs me because it seems so natural that I should and I’d really like to), but the music there and all the activity somehow blended together into a background buzz that actually helped me focus. Weird.

It also pissed me off that I had become one of the poseurs that I so love to rail against, but whatever. It worked … so it worked.

And finally, in closing of a rambling stream of consciousness type entry, gloating: On tap for tonight is a concert: Tears For Fears.

Can I explain how much I love this band, how much their music has meant to me, and to Beth? No, I can’t. But I’ll try.

• I once wrote a horribly bad two-act play titled “Intimate Enemies” inspired by their song Woman in Chains from the album The Seeds of Love. I listened to the album the whole time I was writing it.
• Interestingly, Beth took a cassette tape of it to Spain with her when she lived there for a year and it was part of the soundtrack of her life there.
• It was part of the soundtrack of my life during the same period too, so much so that when someone broke into my car and stole all my CD’s, Seeds of Love was one of the first ones I replaced.
• When Beth and I first met, we played The Seeds of Love over and over and over and over as background music while we… Well, while we were doing what new couples do a lot of. (And Robbie Robertson’s Storyville — but that’s a different story. “There hangs a tale of love.”)
• I’ve been listening to their new CD Everybody Loves A Happy Ending nearly non-stop for a week. I’m listening to it right now, in fact: Who Killed Tangerine?
• One of the Tears guys — Roland — is a dad at Zoe’s school, and both Beth and I are speechless fans whenever we see him. We just gape at him slack-jawed going “Uhhh… Ahhhh… Uh….” I still haven’t spoken to him. I’m afraid to, I’m too awed.

  So tonight is going to be very cool.

  And… that’s it.

  Thank you! Good night!