New Title

New Title, New Phase, New Life.

[Hindsight-o-matic: Old title was "The Violin can be the most painful sound in the World" The New Title became "Twenty-one going on Fourty"]

I'm going job hunting tomorrow. The Airport needs a bartender, so that might be the first place I apply.

I saw Collateral last night. It is an amazing film. Incredible character acting and strong visual artistry. The central characters of the movie intrigue me. They seem like the most extreme alter egos of myself that I might one day become.

One, Max, the Taxi Driver with the long term plans that never get off the ground, 12 years in the same job, always thinking he can't go for his dream until it is perfect. The other, Vincent, the coldblooded killer whose emotional detachment allows him to be brilliant at his chosen profession, yet it seems that his enjoyment is drawn from the chaos of his vocation and not any real passion for the job itself.

I could become a Max, if I do not drive myself to become more than I currently seem to be. I could become a Vincent, if I let myself get so disconnected from the humanity that surrounds me that I stop letting other people matter to me.

I saw it with three girls that I have known for many years. All good kids, younger than me by a range of 4 months to 5 years. The fact that they are sisters, and yet one looks Italian, one looks Irish, and one looks Persian is interesting, and makes them three cool people to hang out with. And yet, they are so young, even the one that is only 4 months behind me. It's like looking backwards across the spectrum of my existence when I engage them in conversation. I can see myself, my progression, and even my aging, when I listen to their lives.

They're good kids. I pray they never need deal with the things that I have dealt with in the last 12 months. It is years like the last one that make Vincents out of men like me.

But I don't want to be a Vincent.