Josh Writes a Blog

A Life Blog about My Life, Dawg

  • 003: keith

    so, i wanted to surprise her with a romantic evening at home for our anniversary, right. i went to fred meyer and i bought, you know, food, pasta and some gourmet marinara sauce, some greens, like, uh, salad, that kind of stuff. a nice bottle of wine. some of those, ah … truffles, chocolate truffles. and in the movies you always see a bunch of candles because women love dimly lit rooms i guess, so i got a bunch of candles. i basically bought a whole shelf worth of candles. had to’ve been like 50 candles, no joke, all of those big jar candles too–i, i spent a lot of money on candles, jake, and i brought them all into my stuffy little apartment and put them everywhere and about a half an hour before she arrived, i lit them all. i guess i kind of wasn’t thinking because, well, i spent too much money, but i was all giddy about showing her a good time because i love her, jake, i love her a lot, and so i bought all of these candles, not knowing that they all smelled. i mean i knew, i saw the lables, but it didn’t really dawn on me. like, 50 candles, and they all have a scent. they all have a different scent, jake. so i light them and then i go out because i’ll be honest i didn’t have any condoms, i go down to the corner store for some condoms and when i get back, my apartment smells like a shit potpourri. because i bought some, you know, lilac and lavender candles and shit, but i also bought some fruity candles like cherry and “manly” candles that smelled like bacon and baked potatoes and shit like that. like, ten candles that smelled like different pies. and i don’t know what to do at this point, the entire apartment smells like shit. i blow a few of them out but then the smell of smoke mixes in with vanilla bean and, i don’t know, fruit salad, all this shit, strawberries and wood smoke and–i swear there was a salmon one, i swear–and it’s awful, it’s worse than just having them lit. oh, and then the smoke alarm goes off, which makes the upstairs neighbor’s dog bark like fucking crazy, so the neighbor is slamming her cane on the ground and i gotta grab a towel to fan the smoke out of the window, we’re talking a five story walkup, there’s no central air, it’s not like i can just …

    well anyway she’s coming, she’s on her way, she texts me, right, and i’ve already told her i have a surprise planned and to dress like we’re going out. i told her that morning, you know, to get her all intrigued. oh, my god jake she was so fucking hot that night. she was like … spring water bubbling out of an oasis after days of wandering the desert. but anyway she’s on her way and i still gotta make dinner. so i’m cooking pasta, i got pasta going and now the house smells like pasta and warming marinara sauce and fucking lilac and rosehips and just, it’s too much, i was retching at this point, like dry heaving, i’m cooking the pasta and trying not to puke. i didn’t know what to do so i just kept cooking, i turned into a robotic wolfgang puck jake, i swear to god. i would stick my face in the steam just to clear my sinuses, man. and i’ve got the pasta and some baguette i bought at fred meyer and sauce and salad and i’m setting the table, i’ve got the pasta in a bowl, it’s all perfect looking. then i’m all finished and i promptly pass out. like, pass out, from the fumes, from the stench of it all. i end up smacking my head on the side of the table hard, and thank god josie has a key to the apartment or else who knows, i might be dead right now. when she came in she said it looked like i got shot in the head, for chrissakes.

    she drives me to the ER and i get some stitches and then we go back to fred meyer and buy a fan, which we prop up in the window to blow out the smoke and lilac and peaches and marshmallow and all that stench. the rigatoni tastes like everything so we chuck it in the compost. i apologize profusely and she says it’s okay and kisses me on the giant goose egg on my forehead. we get pizza and watch netflix and then have a little sex. a little, cause the doc was worried about a concussion, so, you know …

    anyway, i hope mary enjoys the candles. i just had to get rid of them all. i had josie sort them out based on similar smells, so i promise you won’t be blindsided by something weird. if you do though, just chuck it in the garbage or something, because i don’t want any of them back, ever. right now our house is wallpapered in fabreeze. just, whatever you do … one at a time, okay? not all at once. not all at once.

  • 002: janice

    for a while there, all we had in the house was nectarines. my dad got a hold of them somehow, i think he knew a guy who had a nectarine orchard. is that even a thing? i don’t know. but he came home one day with four big burlap sacks full of nectarines. the meal we had before that was pea soup thanks to mom picking wild peas growing on a street near our house. i didn’t even know that was possible. come to think of it … she probably stole those peas. damn. she had to steal those peas! where do peas grow randomly, you know? and i bet dad stole those nectarines. jesus, were we that broke? i mean the pea soup had some kind of cream sauce or something. cream of mushroom, where did that come from? damn … i’m having an epiphany here, lewis. my mind is exploding. my parents were thieves! how the hell else would my dad come up with nectarines? huh. well, anyway, we ate them for every meal for like two weeks, and when they started to go bad my mom baked them into pies and bread and anything else that she could make. now how she got flour and eggs and butter and milk and, fuck, she was such a thief! i’m sorry lewis this is just suddenly coming to my attention after twenty-five years. my dad said he knew a guy who had a nectarine orchard, but my dad never worked a day in his life. he spent his welfare checks on booze, and it’s not like any of the other drunks at the bar had an orchard, much less a nectarine tree.

    do they grow on trees? i don’t even fucking know. i’ve never heard of a nectarine tree. wait let me look this up … oh what, a nectarine is just a peach without the peach fuzz. you gotta be kidding me. not only was my dad a thief but he couldn’t even steal just a peach, he had to steal nectarines. which just means “little nectars”. if you think about it. my family is a fucking mess.

  • 001: allen

    craig’s a nice guy, i guess. he keeps to himself mostly, quiet guy, but not mass shooter quiet. guy’s 35, nobody who’s 35 has the time or energy to kill a bunch of people unless they’re in the army. but yeah, craig. dunno what to say about him. never saw him with a gun or anything. he’s got a couple of pit bulls that he rescued from some gangbanger on castor st. oh, one time he came out in the morning to water his flowers and stuff and he was just in his boxers and socks. i was in the kitchen reading the paper and i look out and there he is, scratching his head like he’d never seen a hose before. i, i don’t think he has a girlfriend or anything. in fact i don’t think i’ve ever seen anyone else in his house. makes me wonder what’s in there. my aunt suzy is a hoarder, right, and she never lets anyone in her house because there’s no room, and probably because she’s embarrassed. but her house is full of the dumbest stuff. like twelve boxes of used coffee filters. she can’t throw ’em out! i told her, i said, “aunt suzy why do you want to keep these?” and she said you can do stuff with ’em. “like what?” i said and she told me to mind my own business. she keeps a padlock on her bathroom door. she’s worse than craig, i’d say. way worse. but i dunno, i’ve never seen inside his house. he may have a bunch of cats in there, i’d have no idea. but guns, bombs, stuff like that … i don’t know. the times i’ve seen him he didn’t look crazy or like he wanted to kill people. but you never know these days. i miss the good old days, when a communist was a communist, when a person would tell you to your face how much they hate women or black people or what have you. then at least you’d know. you know?

  • trapped in camas

    My friends Nate and Bailey got married this past Saturday. Weddings are great, they bring a lot of people together to celebrate the prospect of true love. You get to watch two people stand in front of many humans (and, for some, God) and declare that goddammit, they are going to try to spend their lives together and make babies and fret about mortgage payments and maybe the guy one day when he’s 45 goes out and buys a scooter and the wife is like, “A scooter? Really?” and they have an argument about it but after he buys it anyway she finds out that she secretly kind of likes riding on it with him on cool summer nights. They get old, they die having spent the majority of their adult lives near each other. They are in love, or whatever love is when you’re that old. Some kind of antediluvian force beyond love at that point. This is arguably one of the greatest pinnacles of achievement for mankind: long-term monogamy. Even if you’re not into the concept, you have to agree that it’s a fucking ballsy choice to make, to decide to spend your life with one person, come hell or highwater. So for that, I like weddings.

    However, being single, what I like more are wedding receptions because there is booze and dancing. The reception was held at Bailey’s father’s house in Camas, Washington. You’re probably asking yourself, “Where is Camas, Washington?” and I will tell you: I have no idea. I don’t think I ever will know. I’m not even sure it existed prior to someone telling me about it. It may very well be the Brigadoon of towns in Washington. For far too long, however, I was stranded there. But I get ahead of myself. (more…)

  • looking at a job listing for "bowling desk clerk"

    Job Title: Cashier / Bowling Desk Clerk (JL ID 865478)  Description:

    REQUIREMENTS:
    * Age 21 or over to take orders for or serve and sell alcoholic liquor. As opposed to non-alcoholic liquor.
    * Minimum 1 year experience as a cashier.
    * Effective oral communication skills.
    * Skills to work as a team member.
    * Skills to provide customer service.
    * Strong interpersonal skills.

    When are these things NOT a thing that a job requires? “Must be able to work alone, preferably with bowie knife clutched between teeth, in the jungle in Paraguay.” (more…)

  • let's talk about humiliation

    This quarter at PSU I wrote a full length play for my Script Development class. Since I’m a grad student, I can do that kind of thing. The play I wrote is called 21st Century Love, and it deals with a former Texas high school football coach falling in love with a transgender woman. My original thought was to write a play about two diametrically opposed people falling in love, and I thought those two characters would make an interesting story.

    So I wrote a rough rough draft (obviously there is more to the story than that, but I won’t go into detail), and we read some scenes in class and I got some good feedback, and one of my classmates mentioned that they went to school with a man who has now transitioned into a woman and wrote a series of articles about her life on McSweeney’s. I thought, great, I can send this to her and get feedback not only from a transgender woman, but also from a writer. Her comments would be more focused and particular, which is exactly what I wanted. (more…)

  • late night ramblings

    There was a time, not so long ago, when I enjoyed acting. I’d like to think that I know a bit about myself and the way that I work, and so when I say I enjoyed acting, I mean that there was a point in my life where me — the guy you would see every day — was honest and open about himself. Acting, then, became a great way to inhabit the minds of people I’d never think to inhabit, people who had wildly different thoughts than I did, people who weren’t as honest and open as me, who tried very hard to obfuscate and keep secrets. But me, Josh Belville, just a silly guy with broken glasses and a very general lack of fashion sense, I was here, and I was me. Acting became a way to fuel emotions that I might not necessarily have on a day-to-day basis, to explore some inner workings that I was familiar with, but didn’t spend my life exacerbating, simply because I didn’t have to. There’s a proverb that goes, “Happy is the man who has no story to tell.” That was me. There was no facade, no mask betraying inner feelings. There was just me.

    But now, as I’m writing this, and as I spend time delving into the double life of Don Draper (yes I’m watching Mad Men, and yes I’m watching it quickly), it occurs to me that my life has changed. No longer am I the man who is happy to be honest and open about himself and his life. It’s affected my work. Now I wear a mask every day, which I don’t even remove when I’m therapy; most of my time there is spent talking about other people, rarely about myself. So when I get on stage to perform, the words are meaningless — they’re not real, and I’m not real. The two cancel each other out. There’s no need to wear a mask when you’re already wearing one.

    I mean, people get in this business for a variety of reasons. Some do it because they just want to be seen, acknowledged, loved by scores of strangers in a dark room. Some people desire the disconnect from themselves, because their personal lives are tumultuous and require distance. And some people, people like me, do it because our regular lives are relatively empty, meaningless, and donning someone else’s persona for a couple of hours a night is just a lot of fun. An added bonus is that we share a human experience for a group of people in a dimly lit theater, who may find themselves transformed by the end of the performance, as much as we were transformed in the beginning.

    Performance is about the simultaneous act of giving yourself up for a character, and giving yourself into a character. It is a transformation unseen in any other art form. When Anna Deavere Smith performed her play Fires in the Mirror, she brought that transformation to light, and some people didn’t like it. Say what you will about the play, her contribution to theatre is one of illumination of the act itself. She was herself being characters. The incomplete transformation, the ability to be yourself and be the character. No man is Hamlet, but every actor who has performed Hamlet was Hamlet.

    My problem is: I can’t invest in being Hamlet because I’m too busy being somebody else. Someone who is not me. Someone who doesn’t find joy in the world like he used to.

    I guess what I’m saying is: I’m unhappy. There. You’re welcome.

  • the oresteia

    I’m reading Aeschylus’ The Oresteia for my theatre history class. If you haven’t read it, and I’m just going to go out on a limb here and say that most of you haven’t, then I will explain: it is a tragedy in three parts, buuuut I would take the term “tragedy” loosely here; it’s more a “drama” or “not a comedy,” mostly because it ends happily, and because there really isn’t a feeling of tragic flaw, or really even a feeling of a protagonist. The theme in general is revenge based on Fate. The first play, Agamemnon, deals with King Agamemnon of Argos returning home following the sacking of Troy. He brings with him a slave woman, a prophetess named Cassandra. His wife, Clytemnestra, is angry with him because he A) sacrificed their daughter Iphigenia[1. By the way, did I mention that I typed these names out off the top of my head, without looking? Because I did. Oh yeah.] to the god Artemis so that he could receive favorable winds on the way to Troy, and B) he brought back Cassandra, who, while a prophetess, is pretty much his concubine at this point. (more…)

  • a bit about breaking bad

    WARNING: This post has massive spoilers. If you haven’t seen Breaking Bad yet, get over your hangup about watching people cook meth and watch it. It’s one of the best shows on TV, period.

    Have you watched it? Okay, good. I mean, you don’t have to watch the whole thing. I’m only halfway through season two, okay? So don’t freak out. (more…)

  • deconstructing a random mix cd i found on the ground

    As I was walking home from Fred Meyer with my grocery bag, I happened upon a CD lying in the grass by the new BBQ place by our house. It had one word written on it in iconic black Sharpie: Jose. I walked past, thinking nothing of it, but curiosity got the better of me and I went back and grabbed it. I have since popped it into the DVD player on my computer and am going to talk about its carefully selected tracks right here, right now. (more…)