Conviction

homeless couple who didn't seem  homeless. saw them in Venice. one was a handsome young man probably in his late twenties. the other was a skinny, tall woman around the same age. She could have been a model if her clothes were washed and she wasn't covered in grime. (then again, based on the crazy concepts and designs they come up with these days - ) they were digging around trash cans at McDonalds, looking for cans. They had two small dogs with them. Are they homeless or not? I thought. They're digging through trash; then again, they could be hipsters. They're covered in dirt and wearing mismatched, dirtied clothes; then again, they could be hipsters. They're carrying a baby stroller full of stuff; then again, I thought, hipsters. I studied them for a full two minutes outside of McDonalds. I couldn't decide if they were homeless, or just hippies. As we left, I still didn't know.

i like girls who look lost. they wear frazzled hair, and have large, staring eyes. they look out windows all the time. they're mopey, and that's okay. i saw a girl like this on the freeway, and i thought, yeah, that's the kind of girl i like. she did have frizzy hair.

i was raking some trash at a house in Venice in front of a busy street. i wear one of those white masks which filter the air a bit, almost like surgical masks except these you can buy 10 a pack at Rite Aid for five bucks, I think. the thick dust from the trash kicked up in the air, so I positioned the mask onto my face. as i did this, an old black man with a white beard rode past on a bike. from his broken bike to his tattered clothes, he looked like a bum. he rode past me as i positioned the mask over my mouth and nose; as I did this, he saw me and then he broke into a smile and did that finger-point at me with his index finger, like if you're pretending your hand were a gun, as if he was saying, "Niiiice." I smiled right back, although he couldn't see my mouth, and shot him an index finger too. I didn't know what the hell I was doing. Maybe he thought i was a tagger or a drug-user. then again, as i watched him ride down the street, he finger-pointed about a dozen more things in sight while laughing to himself.

saw the nice chinese lady again. she walked outside while we were working and started talking to my dad. her son needs a gardener for his new house. she said her son bought a house in [city], which i know is a pricey area. his wife, she said, is a surgeon, and they live very comfortably. she wasn't bragging, only saying these things with a mother's pride. I thought when I heard these things, "Well, I could be jealous of this person who has so much, or I could say, 'Cool, maybe one day if I work hard I can have that kind of life too'." So I decided to do that instead.

Oh, by the way, my friend is back from San Francisco. I've said before that he moved up there about two years ago (haha, don't worry if you don't remember), and how when he left our friendship sort of evaporated. He moved back home yesterday, I think. Some of my other friends invited me to hang out with him, but I declined. I have this nagging issue in the back of mind, which says, "Do you really want this person as a friend again?" I've been on this kick lately of choosing my own life path. So far it's been good. Now that it comes to friends, however, I've struggled. My friends aren't exactly great companions, but they're not terrible people. They're regular, flawed and good, people. I wonder, "How long can I avoid my group of friends and still be friends with them?" I'd think years. Maybe two.

School is starting soon. I don't know if I've told you this, but I've finally transferred out of community college and am attending a California State Univeristy this fall. Barely, barely transferred out after four years in communinity college. (Don't know if you remember THIS - I told you long ago the name of my community college. If you do remember, please don't mention it.)

I'm excited for school this year. It's not only excitement in my veins, though. It's also determination. A 'dammit, i'll do it anyway' kind of determination.

Something I've never had for school is passion to succeed. I still don't have passion for grade point averages and stuff like that, yet I know somewhere inside of myself that I'll succeed. I don't ask why. I don't ask how. I only know, somehow. There's an unwillingness to give up. It's deep, and embedded. It is me now.

I don't know what's caused this slight transformation inside of me. I've noticed that I'm being truer to myself than I've ever been. Maybe I've gotten more comfortable being myself. There's still the impending risk of social anxiety waiting below, but i try not to think about it as much. I've realized that miracles don't come down to grant your wishes. Hard work and tirelessly pursuing ones dreams is the only way to get anywhere worth being. I think sitting around my house doing nothing during the first half of summer awakened me to the dull grind of every day life. I literally had nothing better to do. I never wanted that to happen again, so I decided to start a powerful transformation that would affect the rest of my life.

I can't wait to work and live for myself one day. The first step is to graduate college. Meanwhile, I write my butt off and read everything I can. If I'm serious about writing, I need to take myself as seriously as I should take myself: which is seriously. (Hope that clarifies that objective. Haha.)

Grad school. I think I'm going to go. But I need to write some kick ass material if I want to go to a good school for Creative Writing. Or perhaps I should go for a literature degree? That's already my undergraduate. But wouldn't it be fun to write? For movies, or TV shows, or plays? And wouldn't you be able to express yourself more as a creative writer than as a literary student? (In a different way, some would say.) Don't you want to stir the emotions of readers and have them feel grand and lonely at once? Don't you want to change lives, like your life was changed way back in fifth grade when you read Stargirl by Jerry Spinelli? Don't you want to put those same feelings of exhiliration and warmth and tenderness into the hearts of other people? That sounds wonderful. And pretty cool.

I know I'll make it. I know i'll find a job and work for myself and survive day by day. I know i'll do whatever it takes (obviously not fold on my priciples; I know that's what you were thinking) to succeed, have a family, live a good life. The same way I know I'll gradute college, I know I'll fight my way through and do well in life; the same convinction is inside me, slowly, transfigured and embedded into my scrawling bones.

First college. Then writing. At the same time, reading. Then graduate school. Then who knows.

First college. And writing. Write every day.