Category Archives: Life

Insomnia, Life, Love, Writing, Anime, Dramedy

Watching Toradora

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

So I’ve just spent the last several hours watching an anime called Toradora. The title is a mashup of the Japanese words for tiger and dragon. The two main characters are Ryuji and Taiga, the dragon and tiger of the story. It’s probably supposed to be a romantic comedy, and it certainly presents itself in a fairly light manner. The drama is pretty heavy handed though. Some of the conflicts are pretty forced. That hasn’t stopped me from enjoying it. I guess that’s obvious or I wouldn’t be awake at 3 AM writing about it.

I discovered anime when I was in high school. The first one I ever watched was an over-the-top comedy called Outlanders. Barely had a plot at all. I loved it. A crazy alien girl sent to wipe us filthy apes off the face of the planet falls in love with a pathetic photographer. Really, I watched just about any movie, show, or anime that had a bit of romance in it. Ah My Goddess! was next after Outlanders. Definitely had a crush on Belldandy. I didn’t think about it too much back then. Why I was drawn to that. Too close to the situation to see clearly. Isn’t that the biggest kick in the ass? To be so wrapped up or overwhelmed by what you’re feeling to be blind to the realities of the situation. Looking back it’s pretty clear that all of those movies and shows about falling in love, struggling to express it, all of it was a surrogate for what was happening to me. I’ve heard it said that nothing hurts as much as your first love. A bit of forethought could have helped me quite a bit. Not a good idea to take a class just to be with someone you’re in love with after they dump you. You still have to show up to class. Probably why I’ve never pursued anyone I work with. Messy. I digress though.

I’m now on episode 25. (SPOILER ALERT: READ NO FURTHER IF YOU CARE ABOUT THE PLOT TO TORADORA) In the last couple of episodes, out heroes have finally admitted their feelings for each other. I won’t go into the ridiculous means the writers went to keep them from doing this much sooner. I’ve never been to Japan, but I have a hard time believing the willful obliviousness of some of these kids. There was a time when I thought it was just a difference between US and Japanese culture, but I’m not that young anymore. Not that I don’t understand, once they get together the story is over, right? Bleh. Pretty tired of this trope. It’s all over the media EVERYWHERE. As if the bits that happen after people start dating aren’t interesting? I have to wonder if this tendency in television and movies, magazines and manga, really builds up an image of love and relationships that has no bearing whatsoever on reality? I mean sure, when I was in high school it was damn hard to talk to girls, to tell the girl I loved that I love her. I did, and I got hurt. Some people don’t, and still get hurt. The rare few stick together from those early days. I think this constant buildup of the “before love” gives people expectations that can never be met.

My love life has been a train wreck pretty much from the beginning. I fixated on one girl throughout junior high and high school. I was in an abusive (emotionally) relationship for quite some time after that. It took me years to get out of that one, and more years to understand why I needed to. I don’t hate her for the abuse though. We were both young and dumb. It came down to wanting different things. Neither of us could understand that though. It’s easy to confuse intimacy and the closeness that brings with love when you don’t have the experience to tell the difference. I learned a great deal from that relationship. I learn from every relationship. At least I try to. So I’ve dated, married, divorced, married, divorced… I’ve come to understand what it means, really means, that we are all different. It sounds obvious, but everyone being different means relationships are all different. Not superficially either, but truly unique. How could they not be? You take two or more unique individuals and put them together. Never know what’s going to come out of it. You can’t be too afraid to try. I won’t say don’t be afraid because there’s a lot to fear. Just can’t let the fear freeze you in place, or stop you from taking a chance. Even if that ends up in failure, you’ve learned something. Another combination that won’t work. To quote Thomas Edison: “I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” (I am aware that this attribution is contested, doesn’t change how apt it is.)  So keep on learning from failure in the hopes of being able to recognize the real deal when you meet them.

Back at the ranch, I think what is pissing me off most about what’s happened in Toradora is just how forced this latest conflict is. Ryuji and Taiga were ready to elope if their parents tried to stand in their way. They’ve finally admitted their feelings and are taking the first steps to becoming a real partnership. They already know each other behind their social masks so really they’ve got big leg up over most new relationships. It can be pretty awkward when you start letting someone far enough into your life to really see all of the little “gross” things we do that are part of life, but that society likes to pretend doesn’t happen. Anyway, there’s some drama where they decide to run away. Sort of. Their friends all think it’s a bad idea but help them on their way. (True friendship or total irresponsibility?) After making their decision they both run home to get a few things. Ryuji expected to have to fight past his mother, but discovers she’s gone. She leaves him a letter and a watch that will get him into his grandparents’ home if he wants to. So naturally they end up there. Where else would they go, I guess? After they’re there for a day or two, they hatch a scheme to get his mom to show up. (BTW, the grandparents are incredibly understanding to take in a grandson they’ve never met along with his “bride”.) This is where they finally kiss for the first time as well. Practicing for when they really do get married. It’s actually an incredibly sweet and touching scene. Too bad it’s completely ruined by the next bit.

So after a happy family reunion, Ryuji and Taiga decide to return with Ryuji’s mom and go back to living the way they were until they can get Taigi’s dysfunctional parents’ permission to get married. Yeah, okay. At least they’re going to work on being a couple. Until Taiga comes back to her apartment to find her mother didn’t stick around to wait until she showed back up. And now, now, after all of the crap her family has put her through does she suddenly get a hair up her ass to go home and mend fences, leaving her fiance a note. A note. So of course Ryuji is devastated but is putting on a brave. All of her friends at school are upset, and more drama is about to ensue. Thus the writers have managed to narrowly avoid that kiss of death for a romantic comedy TV series, the happy ending. I think what annoys me the most is that I was far more interested in watching their relationship develop. All of the missteps they would no doubt take, Ryuji’s wacky mom breaking out with surprisingly insightful commentary from time to time. I guess that’s kind of shift to a more slice of life series, but why not? I like a lot of the things they’ve done with this series, but this forced conflict thing is just crap. It feels like they’re jerking these characters around for no more reason than to make the series longer.

I will no doubt continue watching this until it ends, or until the forced conflicts grow to such ridiculous proportions that I feel like I’m watching a puppet show by kids imitating bad soap operas.

Career, General, Life, Unemployment, Changes

Switching it Up

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This entry is part [part not set] of 73 in the series The Writing Life Blog

Recently I have been giving a lot of thought to a serious attempt to change careers. This is a pretty big deal for me as I’ve mostly been going with the flow since I dropped out of college. I went in to IT contracting after giving up on school and eventually landed a steady job at a phone company for about 5 years. I stayed in the job because it was easy and the pay was okay. By the end of my time there, my day’s work only took me a couple of hours to finish. The rest of the time I spent reading news or playing games. In the time that I worked there, I moved out away from home and got my own apartment. Eventually picked up a house on the cheap that needed some work. Didn’t do much of the work except the necessities for the first couple of years there. Eventually though it was a nice little place to live. My sister moved in and suddenly my social life improved. My job though was clearly a dead end affair. Not much possibility of advancement.

Then the company was bought out by a much larger one and the layoffs began. We went from an office of well over 100 people to about 30 before they moved us to a smaller facility. The trimming continued. Seeing the writing on the wall, I was looking for work elsewhere. One of our managers landed a group of us positions at another telephone company. Not experienced enough to know this was a bad move for me, I left and went to the new company. In hindsight I should have stayed with my old company until they did lay me off so I could at least collect unemployment while looking for a job I might actually want to stay with. I quickly found myself in a high-stress customer service position with the new company and realized I couldn’t hack it. So again, with my lack of experience, I simply quit. I had confidence that I could find something better for me fairly quickly. This turned out to be a foolish belief though. My lack of a college degree severely hampered my ability to land a decent job.

After that, it was a slow and steady slide in to unemployment depression. Good jobs did not fall out of the sky. I spent most a year unemployed, and during that time I was forced to sell my house and move to an apartment. I lived off of my various sources of credit. Definitely a step back. In the end, I decided my life needed a drastic change. I could try to go back to college, get student loans, take on even more debt. Fun times right? Instead I decided to enlist in the military. It was a bit of a crazy idea. I know my family couldn’t have been more surprised as I’ve never been the gung-ho military type. Still, I figured it was worth a shot. Luckily for me, I did quite well on the placement tests and had my pick of jobs within the service. Six years later, I was married and divorced, lived in several states, and had a very marketable set of skills to go with my military experience. I was up for re-enlistment, however the job I really wanted, I wasn’t allowed to switch to. The service gave me an ultimatum: go back to training for more of the same work I’d done for the past several years, or get out. Easy choice. Now I do the same thing, only there’s no military hoopla to deal with on top of the job. The pay is better to. This, finally, gets back to my original point though: money can’t buy happiness.

Now what? This is the question I face every day. Some days it’s a bit easier to ignore than others. It’s a tough question because it leads to a follow-up: what do I want to do? That’s the real 65 million dollar question. What the heck to I want to do with my life? When I was a kid in elementary school, I thought I had that one down. I wanted to be a computer programmer. I certainly spent enough time writing little games. I’ve even used those skills to help with pretty much every job I’ve had from time to time. When I got to college, I arrived with the mistaken expectation that being there would change everything. That I was finally getting the chance to do what I really wanted. My freshman year I took a huge load of general education classes to get them out of the way, so they wouldn’t interfere with what I was really there to learn. So the next year, I get in to my first Computer Science classes. They sucked. Perhaps it was how they were delivered. After all, an auditorium lecture format is not ideal for teaching a programming language. I was hugely disappointed, and it showed in my grades. After the first semester, I dropped out to take a break. Figure out what I wanted to do with my life. Guess I’m still figuring.

So what is the answer? I don’t really know. I wouldn’t mind investing for a living, at least giving it a shot anyway, but I definitely don’t have the kind of money to really get that going unless I get lucky. I could try to break back in to the computer programming business, but it’s getting a bit late for that. I also do not relish spending the rest of my life in some cubicle, pounding away on some program I don’t really care about. There’s freelance programming of course. Indie game development and such. Now is certainly a good time for Indie games. Hell, I’ve got over 400 hours in Terraria. Every time I’m bored with everything else, it’s back to Terraria I go. Still, there is one thing I’ve always wanted to do, but never had the guts to try. It’s even something I can do, though with difficulty, while holding down my current job: writing. I have been an avid reader since the 3rd grade, and have dabbled from time to time in the fine art of writing. The trick though, is that it is extremely difficult to make a living with just writing. A very, very small percentage of writers in this country succeed to the point where writing is all they need to live comfortably. Indeed, many writers have said that money should not be one’s motivation. I can certainly believe that. I guess the question now is am I still willing to give it a shot? Do I invest the immense amount of time needed to polish my skills, write, write, and write some more? Can I handle the inevitable initial rejections? Can I handle the possibility of failure? A dream not pursued is still there to dream about. True failure would kill that dream. Then again, what happens to a dream deferred?