Prologue and Chapter 1

Prologue: Cold Sweat

In the grand scheme of things, everybody has the generally the same game plan. At some point, we all plan to find a career, get married, have kids, attempt to enjoy life, retire, and die. That was Charlie’s game plan, too, until somebody came along and fucked the whole thing up.

Charlie sat on the corner of his bed late one balmy June night, his sweat soaked head in his hands, peering down into the darkness at the beige carpet in his room. He had just suffered the same nightmare he’s had for years past, only this time there was something more real about it. His nightmares weren’t actually dreams, it was him asleep thinking about things that actually happened. He had gotten good at getting past it, something his therapist called “Cognitive Behavioral Therapy”.

He ran his hands through his wet light brown hair and opened his eyes wide. It had been a very crazy three years for him, sometimes he had to check to make sure he was still living in real life and hadn’t shipped himself off to the loony bin. As he stands, his chest heaves with deep breaths and his heart beating hard- the perks of standing too quickly after laying down for too long. His tall frame creates a silhouette against the moonlight shining in through the windows above his bed.

Walking to his bathroom and trying to walk silently enough so as not to wake his housemates, he shakes his head a couple times. It was another bad night, he thought to himself. Just another bad dream. Splash some water on your face to cool down, head back in the room and throw some music on and everything will drift away....

Charlie turned the light on in the bathroom and stared at himself in the mirror, his hands holding firm on the edge of the sink. He splashed some water in his face and quickly toweled it off before returning to his bed.

As he laid down, the sound of his favorite singer, Norah Jones, began to echo softly from his computer. Any time he had a bad night, Norah could put him to sleep. Her voice was familiar to him by now. Charlie stared up at the ceiling, trying to coax himself back to sleep...

It all started three years ago.....that one fateful day....

Chapter One: Dragon Pants

It was 2004. Charlie sat in his dorm room, wearing ridiculously brightly colored pajama pants, looking at his roommate. Part of him was cussing the school out. He had came here to escape everything about his high school and his hometown of Cleveland. Instead, the school put him in the same room with some slob that went to high school with him and put his name down on the reserve list.

Russ smelled terrible. He was fat and used steroids, but was dumb enough to use them incorrectly. He’s the kid who thought that just by injecting the sauce into your ass on a daily basis, it would make you bigger. Instead, he grew more rotund. He was your usually wannabe baseball jock. Loud, obnoxious, and believed he was God’s golden gift to the game of baseball and to all those around him with the luck to be around him.

“Come on man, the third and fourth floor are chick floors! Welcome to college, bro! Let’s go get us some fuckin pussy!”  said Russ as he changes out of his practice uniform and into a pair of gym shorts and a cutoff tee.

“Umm...don’t you need to shower first? You just got back from a four hour practice...” was Charlie’s response. “Nah, fuck that, I’m cool.” Russ walked over to the bolted in dresser and grabbed his bottle of cologne, spraying himself down a good seven times, including two good luck squirts on his crotch.

“Come on, bro. Don’t make me go up there alone. This is college! This is what it’s about! Put the fuckin book down and let’s go grab us some snatch!”

The irony of the statement caused Charlie to grin a little. He looked back down at his book, one of the required summer readings, but then closed his eyes and put the book on his desk, shaking his head. If he didn’t go up there with Russ, Russ would do it alone and invariably offend every girl up there, thus making it impossible to bring a girl back to the room, if he ever got lucky like that.

Charlie gets off his bed and walks over to his closet to find a pair of shorts.

“What the fuck are you doing? Lets go man! Times a-wastin and you aren’t getting any prettier!”

“Let me put some shorts on man...let me get out of these pajama pants...”

“Nah, fuck that, bro. They’re good. You need a sticking point. Something they’ll remember you by. If you leave an impression, no matter what it is, bitches remember.”

Charlie laughed once more.

“You really thing multicolored dragon pajama pants are gonna do that? These things are hideous man....I never wore these out in public...”

“Dude, seriously, you’ll be fine.”

“Well...whats your gimmick, Russ?”

Russ quickly looked around the room before grabbing the sombrero from Charlie’s trip to Mexico off the wall.

“Russ, get the fuck out of here. My sombrero? You look ridiculous!”

“That’s the point, bro! Girls love that ‘sense of humor’ bullshit. You know they don’t give a fuck what you really think! As long as you show and pretend you’ve got a quote unquote good sense of humor, panties drop like manna from Heaven.”

Charlie stared blankly at Russ for a second. He didn’t know whether to question how Russ knew a parable and was able to use it correctly, or why Russ connected manna to panties.

“Come on, dude. You ready? Pussy awaits us, my friend!”

Charlie rolled his eyes, lowered his head and walked out of the room behind Russ. This was a huge mistake, but at least Charlie could play the straight man. Russ would invariably make an ass out of himself, which meant as long as Charlie stood there, smiled, and played the shy but respectful type, he would probably meet some girl he could stand talking to.

Most of the rooms were the same. Russ would jump in and introduce himself and start the conversation, while Charlie politely introduced himself and talked to some of the girls he met at orientation. They were all perfectly nice, but none of them really stood out to him. Then again, he spent most of high school playing sports and hanging out with his teammates instead of pursuing girls 24/7. He had his fair share of girlfriends, but most of them came from the team. Needless to say, his skills were a little lacking.

They had made it up to the fourth floor, where all the quads were. Russ stopped Charlie outside of the first one.

“Look, bro. I met one of the girls in this room earlier. She is SMOKIN fuckin hot. Don’t fuck this one up, alright? I wanna bone her.”

Charlie rolled his eyes at Russ.

“Im serious, man! Don’t fuck this one up for me!”

“Yeah, yeah. I got you, Russ.”

Russ knocked on the door and a tiny Asian girl opened it.

“Heyyyyy! Sophie!! How the fuck is it goin?! I haven’t seen you in hours!”

Russ clobbered Sophie with a bear hug as Charlie watched behind him in bemusement as he can see Sophie’s eyes bug out once she catches Charlie’s after-practice musk.

“Hi, Russ. What’s up?”

Sophie removed herself from Russ’ grip and smiled at Charlie, extending her hand for a handshake.

“Hi. You must be Charlie? I’m Sophie. Russ and I met today at orientation.”

Charlie shook Sophie’s hand and smiled. She was cute, sure, but he would hardly call her “smokin fuckin hot” as Russ deemed her.

Russ barged past the door and into the room to meet the rest of the girls. Charlie walked behind him...

And then stopped. She stood in front of him in a pair of green basketball shorts and a gray shirt, her hair done up in a pony tail.

“Hi, I’m Ashley. What’s your name?”

The words didn’t register with Charlie. He was absolutely caught in her beauty. She must have quickly noticed him staring, because she blushed and smiled.

“Do I have a booger or something? Because that would be really embarrassing...almost as embarrassing as those pants..”

Charlie snapped back to reality and looked down. The fucking dragon pants. What an embarrassment. He told himself to remember to kick Russ in the balls later on for suggesting he walk out of the room in these goddamned pants.

“Ahh..yeah...sorry. My best friend from home made these for me.”

“I see. I don’t know many guys who sew.....”

“Oh! No. She’s a girl.”

“Girlfriend?”

“Who, Sarah? God no. We go way back. She’s like a sister. Yeah, no. I definitely don’t have a girlfriend right now.”

Charlie started to blush, badly. He knew he was failing badly at talking to this girl, but he was just shellshocked at how attracted he was to her.

“Good to know. I don’t even know your name, but I know you’re single.”

“OH! Sorry! Sorry! My name is Charlie. What’d you say your name was?”

“Ashley.”

“Hi, Ashley. My name is Charlie.....”

He paused for a moment and smiled. Charlie knew he was going to hang himself later in his closet for biffing the conversation this bad.

“Ah shit. I already told you my name. Sorry.”

“Its alright, Chuck. Where you from?”

Ashley sat on her bed and patted next to her, motioning for Charlie to come sit next to her.

“Thanks. I’m from Cleveland, Ohio.”

“Oh yeah? What part of Cleveland?”

“The actual city of. I hate those people who say they’re from Cleveland, but it ends up being a suburb. If you live in a suburb, just say so. If somebody says they’re from New York, nobody actually asks them where in New York, they just nod their heads. But with Cleveland, nobody is actually from the city. Its dumb.”

Ashley smiled while Charlie just buried his head into his chest and shook his head.

“Ah...ah...I’m sorry. For real. Russ forced me to come out and meet people. I don’t know what I’m doing up here.”

Ashley laughed.

“It’s okay. It’s kinda cute.”

Charlie looked up to see Ashley smiling and brushing a piece of her brunette with blonde highlighted hair behind her ear.

“So, where are you from, Ashley?

“Avon.”

“Oh! I know where that is! That’s about thirty minutes from Cleveland, right?”

“Yep!”

“Oh wow, we don’t live too far from each other.”

“Guess not. Don’t start stalking me now...”

“Oh...oh no. I didn’t mean it in that way! Fuck....do you just want me to leave? I’m sorry.”

Ashley puts her hand on Charlie’s.

“You’re fine, Chuck. What’s got you so nervous?”

“Well, its just that I think you’re really, really pretty. Ohhhhhh....”

Charlie said out loud what he was thinking and only caught himself after he said it. He closed his eyes and tried to fight back the tears of humiliation he felt welling in his eyes. This was kick to the nuts number two for Russ later.

“Oh...well...thank you Chuck. I think you’re pretty cute, as well.”

He looked up again and he must have looked like an excited puppy dog with as wide as his eyes were, because Ashley let out a loud laugh.

“Well...thanks, I think.”

Charlie didn’t know what to do. He had never been in this situation before. In his head were a million different thoughts, none of which seemed like a viable option. However, he knew he got to this point by being open and direct, so why stop it?

“Well, you wanna hang out?”

As Ashley goes to answer, Russ cuts a loud fart from across the room, much to the delight of Sophie.

“Umm...if you keep company like that....”

“Oh no! He’s just my roommate. I DID NOT pick to live with that mongoloid.”

“Alright. We can hang then. You wanna watch a movie later?”

“Sure!”

Charlie was beside himself he was so excited. Is it really that easy? is all he could think to himself. He walked in there, made an absolute ass out of himself, and ended up with a pseudo-date later on in the night. They continued to talk for a few more minutes before deciding on a time to meet later that night to watch the movie. Russ and Sophie butted in and joined the movie plans as well.

As Russ and Charlie walked back down the stairwell to their room, Russ punched Charlie in the shoulder.

“See, ya motherfucker!  I told you things were gonna work out! I’m totally gettin laid tonight! She’s a fuckin slam piece, bro! Totally!”
Rather than engage him in conversation, Charlie merely nodded hid head, still unable to get the smile off his face. Russ or no Russ, he had a movie date with Ashley tonight.

Taking Back My Blog.

Yeah. So I haven't been here in forever. Mostly because I pursued different interests. My blog got "future endeavored" for the New Breed and most recently the College Republican National Committee blog, along with Border War with some Marietta friends.

I find myself drawn back to this personal space, though, because there are no set boundaries to this one. I can write what I want, when I want. I think thats my downfall as a writer. When I block myself in and write about one thing, I often find myself bored or unable to write. Not because I don't have the ideas, but I just don't enjoy it. One more flaw to add to my neverending and constantly growing list, I suppose.

However, I have come home. Over the past couple weeks, I've just been inspired. Maybe its stagnation, maybe its internal clock...I don't know.

I have the belief that I can be a great writer. That one day I might be able to make some money off the profession. That I have AT LEAST one good story in me, even if its semi-autobiographical. Its just a feeling that has always been there, since I joined the creative writing team in grade school.

But I always cast it aside. I thought it would be too hard, too complicated, too time consuming.

Recently, though, the pieces started to fit. I started to find audiences for the different types of writing I do. Finding that people actually enjoy what you have to say is a great confidence boost. So thanks to everyone who has been reading my stuff, wherever you've been reading. It means a lot to me that, even if only ten people may have read it, its still ten people who took the time to see what I had to say. And if I can get ten people to read one piece, how many more can I get if I really let loose.

So I decided to sit down and start writing. To attempt to make sense of all the ideas that float in my head and put it together into one cohesive story.

Over the next couple weeks, I'll start posting some pieces from it. I'd like some feedback. If you think it sucks- please tell me. If there's something you especially like, please tell me. Be candid, but not too mean (please). You can post it in replies or you can email me (michael86hart@gmail.com), but just be honest. I can't get better at this if I don't have anyone telling me where I can improve.

I also don't have a title yet. I find the title to be the hardest thing to come up with, because it has to be catchy enough to draw readers in, but vague enough to not give too much away. So, if, while you're reading, you think of a worthy title, let me know. I'll give you a writing credit :)

Lost in the Process

I do believe that within hours of this blogs existence, I have overthought it completely. I still can’t figure out a format, but I know that if I quit trying, its just going to go nowhere, like the three other blogs I tried to put together. The difference with this one is that there’s no general direction…it just is.

I think my best approach right now is catharsis- this is going to serve as my dumping ground. Instead of actually writing, I’ll just describe my process, in a hopes of kicking the bad habits and getting back to my roots, when I could actually sit down, focus for about six hours, and just pour my thoughts into a story.

I don’t know what ruined my ability to write. I can name a few different things that I point to, but I don’t know if that is the definite cause. I know its not so much an inability to be creative, it’s the inability to actually sit down and translate thought into written word. That’s where I get lost in the process. I’ve never been particularly stellar at self-motivation when it comes to time consuming hobbies, but writing was always the one thing I could immerse myself in if I wanted to forget the world for a bit of time.

To the beginning, it started in grade school. I was one of the dorks who looked forward to trying out and making my schools Power of the Pen creative writing team. Yeah, such a thing exists. We had try outs and t-shirts and everything. Go figure. The format was simple- here’s a prompt, take 40 minutes, hammer a story out. That was it. If only sports could be as pure and simple these days, instead of tuck rules, hand checks, insert mindless rule here….

I loved it. I immersed myself in books, trying to figure out how authors got their ideas. I watched movies to determine how to shore up plot holes, how to build up characters, how to translate real life into proper storytelling. I still catch myself doing it all the time. When I watch a movie, I can guess whats going to happen as soon as the movie starts, I can tell you what plot devices they’re going to use to get there, and give you a rundown of the major characters and what literary device or general character they’re devised from. My goal still is to put together a successful screenplay, I just can’t find an idea worth all that writing.

I think I crossed the line when I came to college. I can’t pinpoint it, but I think that’s when I stopped writing for fun, because I was constantly writing for work. Even when I changed my major to journalism, the fun wasn’t there anymore, though I think part of that has to due with a culture clash concerning the professor. We didn’t get along well, his teaching style didn’t fit my writing style, and his idea of encouragement was to tell me “You could be a journalist, but I wouldn’t think you’d do anything spectacular.” He might as well have followed up by digging a rusty fork into my eye and turning. While he may have been telling the truth, isn’t the point of learning to attempt to achieve the impossible and refine your work to exceed that limit of greatness? That was the final straw. When he put that verbal dagger through me, I gave up on journalism as a serious job and concentrated on what became my singular major, Political Science (at one point I was a triple major- Graphic Design, Journalism, Political Science. I had high aspirations, as you can tell).

My problem these days is just writing, not story crafting or idea conception. There are great ideas all around me these days for stories, I just can’t write. Literally, I will pull up a Word document, pick out my favorite batch of writing songs, hide all my IMS and social networking sites……and MAYBE get a sentence or two out. In February, I put together a great concept and began writing a novel. I was so excited for the idea, because everything I was coming up with just clicked. I would talk to my closest friends about it, show them things I had written and they loved it just as much as I did. But, as soon as I had gotten excited and writing, I gave up. No rhyme or reason. There wasn’t anybody discouraging me. I just couldn’t write. I would sit there and stare and reread, but there was no desire to continue. That’s how painful it has become. Or I would skip around and put ideas down to unfold further in the story, or open up a separate Word doc to plot an outline and do character sketches. My hope is to get back to that idea once I can kick this writers block or whatever the hell it is I’m facing.

Right now, it just feels good to sit down and write stream-of-consciously and see what happens. Its not necessarily entertaining writing, but at least I can sit here and put thoughts to words and not worry about getting burned out. Yet.


As a side note, I’m writing this down to hopefully exercise it from my mind. I’ve seen Talladega Nights a million and a half times. It was on TBS Sunday night and I had it playing in the background as I was unpacking. At one point, Ricky Bobby says ‘Well let me quote the late great Colonel Sanders. He said “I’m too drunk to taste this chicken”.’ I laughed hysterically. Now I can’t get it out of my head. I have no idea why. It’s a throwaway non-sequitur, but I can’t escape it. Damn you Ricky Bobby.

Lost in Mindspace

As I sat down in an attempt to put thoughts to keyboard, I couldn’t figure out quite how to start. You see, my creative thought process is always a jumble. I never think in linear terms. I fashion myself as a bit of a writer, albeit a very lackadaisical one. When an idea comes to mind, it comes in pieces. I can get the general idea down, and piece parts of the story together and have an awesome rough draft put together in my head. However, when I sit down to quantify the story and put it down, I blank at beginnings.

I suppose, however, that’s how I am throughout life, period. Not very good at beginnings. I can make a good first impression, but its usually because I’m too shy to do anything but. However, new year; new beginnings. This is my attempt to change things around. I can’t really define this blog, because I have no idea what shape its going to take. There’s a lot I tend to think about in depth and there’s really no rhyme or reason as to why it happens. I can’t explain my thought process, so my only real hope is to put it into writing and hopefully somebody out there will have a good explanation that doesn’t involve pills or institutionalization.
This is officially my mental dumping ground. Whatever I think, hopefully I remember to put here. If you enjoy reading it (if anybody reads it), then good for you; I’m glad to make your life that much better. If you disagree, post as to why and maybe I’ll respond, if it’s something more eloquent than “Screw you, you suck and you’re stupid.” I know somebody will do that though, so kudos to you for being a dumbass in advance.

There’s a lot that can be seen here in the future. Sometimes, I will post half thought out story ideas that I come up with, with the intent to come back and maybe actually use them….or you can use them if you feel you can do it justice (just let me know and cut me in on the royalties, please). Maybe something will catch my eye in the world of politics or sports and I’ll feel the need to spout off at the mouth about it….it could be a lot of things, really. I’m interested in a lot- I watch a lot of TV, I read as many books as possible, and catch as many movies as I can. I’m the asshole at trivia night who knows absolutely everything about everything without having to think about it. That’s just how my mind works.

So, for those of you who end up reading this (probably nobody), I hope you enjoy a glimpse into what makes me tick. I just hope it doesn’t scare anybody.