Sitting here present day, considering all of the world’s issues or movements, if you will, and I can’t help but feel inundated. I admit that I have not watched the KONY 2012 video, paid much attention to the Treyvon Martin controversy or even vested myself much in this year’s election. I feel overwhelmed instead of outraged. I don’t think I need to give myself up to something. I don’t think it’s complacency either. I just want nothing to do with the flood of information that’s coming my way.

It’s become unpopular to rest in the margins and take this in as a casual observer. Yes, I’m aware of what’s happening in my world, but I’m choosing not to be a part of it. I don’t think that makes me like everyone else. Listening to myself more then ever is not a bad thing. It’s the unpopular thing. I like to learn. But I never like to do it from one source. I’m a firm believer that the best thing you can do is educate yourself from a variety of sources. To never be too trusting of one outlet is the best thing you can do for yourself.

We’ve hit this saturation point where opinion becomes fact when it’s wrapped up in an aesthetically pleasing package. News outlets rely on us to do their jobs for them through social media. How many times have you seen news networks encourage viewers to send in their ‘iReports’ or some other similarly-named submissions? It’s a disrespect to the profession that I went to school for.

Opinion becomes fact rather quickly when it’s wrapped up in an aesthetically pleasing package. I just wish more people paid attention to that. Everything seems to matter now, and we’re all expected to ACT NOW when something outrageous happens. Who has the time for it all? Excuse me for sounding selfish, but having my hands in everything is something I wish I had the capacity for. It’s a burden I cannot bear, at least for now.

Sort of a mixed bag today.

I ate here.
I received this in the mail.
I purchased these.
I helped set up one of these at a friend’s.

That was my Wednesday.

Today was not much of a day worth writing about. I saw “The Artist”, a modern silent film that didn’t do much to impress me, and I followed that up by watching football. That’s about it.

At least there’s something here, right? It still counts!

Death is not easy to talk about. It never has been for me. It’s scary. It’s final.

I have death anxiety. Severe. There are extended periods of time (ie: the winter, bad break-ups) where I’m completely preoccupied with ‘the end’, obsessed by the idea that it may be right around the corner. Will my next step be the wrong one? I’m superstitious. I’m extremely paranoid. I’m not comfortable writing any of this right now, because I feel like something bad will happen to me.

The other day I stood outside The Dakota at the corner of West 72nd and Central Park West, gazing up at the top. It’s an imposing building with it’s gargoyles and gothic architecture, but in a way, it’s wickedly beautiful. I visit often because I’m a big Beatles fan. It’s where John Lennon lived. It’s also where John Lennon died.

As I looked at the archway – that archway, I imagined what it must have been like that balmy Monday night – December 8, 1980, Lennon walking out of his limo and through the archway before a man stepped out of the shadows fired gunshots into him. He probably had no idea what happened. Did he feel them? Was he sure they were gunshots? Did he experience pain? Could he feel death coming? Just minutes later, it was all over. Gone forever.

Exactly four years and 356 days later, I was born. My first breath came that long after his last. It’s stunning to think that these people live their entire lives before others are born. I mean, this has been happening for thousands of years. It’s just a weird thing to think about.. Why do I think this about John Lennon? I don’t know. There’s something personal about his death, so unfair and sudden that even those who didn’t even exist when he lived can feel that injustice on such a visceral level.

That brings me to the book I just read. A book about death. Real death. Personal suffering. The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion.

Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne were two renowned authors who worked and lived together for nearly 40 years. They mostly worked together, were close confidants and aided each other in their writing process. Throughout their time together, they had one daughter, Quintana. Sometime in 2003, Quintana became gravely ill and ended up in a coma. This is essentially where the book begins.

On the night of December 30, 2003 the couple returned home from the hospital. As Didion began to prepare dinner, Dunne suffered a fatal heart attack. Within seconds, Didion’s life is changed forever. She loses her confidant. Her daughter is gravely ill, and she’s right in the middle of it.

This detail of the story should be compelling enough to make it a book worth reading. What surprised me the most was the clarity Didion recalls this year. Her process of grieving. Trying to come to terms with her husband’s death while she needs to tend to her very sick daughter. It seems insurmountable. But she finds a way to do it.

What’s special about this book is that It’s free of melodrama and self-help anecdotes – instead, there’s a plainness to it. Crisp, clear and direct. She doesn’t want sympathy and doesn’t provide the reader the opportunity to feel bad for her. This is her life. This is her experience. This is how she is dealing with it. Cut and dry.

The Year of Magical Thinking made me feel better about dying. Of course it’s going to happen to me. It will continue to happen around me as the years go by until it’s my time. What I learned from Didion is this: You must keep on. You must persist. If you don’t, you’re doing just as well as those that are already gone.

I know I’ve been terrible about updating this site. I’m in the process of moving right now. That said, when stuff get a little less crazy, updates should resume.

This is a brand new decade. It can’t be any newer. The one that ended yesterday seemed to go at a traumatically brisk pace. The 1990s seemed to exist way longer than they actually were. This, in part because there was a mélange of cultural moments, styles and ideas that shaped each year and still make them easy to define. This decade? Not so much. Every cultural phenomona seemed to hit at once, and then linger. There were so many things happening, they packed every square inch of calendar space.

The two-thousands are the first decade I can remember from beginning to end with clarity. Most of my formative years- the things that shape your life and set you on the course you’re on now happened. It was a unique time to be growing up, because instead of the glacial change and relative peace of the decade before it, the world seemed to rise and fall just as I hit highs and lows as well.

This decade was a hyper intense cycle of life and death, war and despair, hope and loss and and an overwhelming amount of information coming all at once. So much, I’ve struggled writing this because I don’t know exactly what to include.

It was an insane time to grow up – both good and bad. The wars, the endless stream of controversies, the first two presidential elections are some of the least proud moments – but at the same time, there was the music, the movies, and the people who worked to make this world (and my life) a better place.

I feel privileged to have had a front row seat. I got to form my opinions on a world that was experiencing growing pains just as I had mine. I learned nothing was easy, dreams can die, and things don’t always turn out the way they’re supposed to.

Okay, so maybe that’s a bit fatalistic. If I’ve learned anything else: there’s almost always second chances. There are ways to get the things you want. There are ways to better yourself and the world around you.

There’s always the time to dream bigger and make them a reality.

I now know more than ever, this is my chance to.