Originally written on August 2012. Unlike previous posts, I will post my thoughts about this story in the comments on a later date.
"Hi, everyone. I'm…Arley Rodriguez.""Hi, Arlee." says everyone.
"No, it's Ar-ley, not Arlee. Actually, it, it doesn't really matter."
This is his first meeting.
"I, um, have an anger problem, but, you, uh," says Arley while scratching his nose, "probably already knew that. I'm sorry, I tend to say really stupid things when I'm…"
Group 5 is made up of 12 heads, each of them as insecure as the next. 4 brown eyes, 7 blues, 1 with an eye tattoo. The 13th head is the leader of the group, Earl Morris, who liked to call himself "the leader". Earl places his comfortable "leader's" chair near the exit in case a session ended prematurely. The quaint classroom setting couldn't disguise the ravaging fury buried in the bellies of Group 5.
"…nervous. Um, I'm fairly young, 23 or so, and I'm still not completely satisfied with life. I…usually take it out on others when a day doesn't go as planned. No one really understands the day system and…shit, let me start over."
Group 5 has many eccentric people. One of them is a pyromaniac, targets objects that remind him of his long, dead puppy. One of them purposefully gets into bar fights to get a larger wound than the night before. One of them decided to exile themselves from society for two weeks after destroying a Girl Scout cookies booth.
"Okay, the day thing is one of the problems but there's many, many others."
"Um, Arley," says the leader, "I don't mean to interrupt but we haven't gotten all the way across the room yet and a few people still need their turn."
"Oh, right, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Tha, that's it." said Arley, slumping back into the rental chair.
The remainder of Group 5 got to share the rest of their stories, each of them ranging from immature to borderline nuts. Of course, Arley usually believes he's immature and insane, so to him, the stories weren't very thrilling. Focused on how much his life currently is, he can only feel condescendingly sorry for the others.
"Thanks to everyone who shared their stories-"
"Especially that fuckface, Arley," Arley whispers to himself.
"-I can only imagine how many unresolved issues you all seem to have and I can only hope that we will be able to resolve each of them in the next few months. Acknowledging that you have an anger problem and are willing to come here is the first step to recovery. Each of you have the capabilities to empower yourself to a happier life." says the leader, the man hired by the government to prevent these people from killing each other.
"Oh, god," mutters Arley as he covers his face with his right hand.
"First, we'll start with an exercise. Everybody, please join hands."
The group disjointedly straightens up, spines curving around on the seat backs. They look to the left and right and grab each other's hands.
"Good, good, that can be very difficult for some people."
Arley sits up, holding his own hands together.
"Now close your eyes. That's it. Relax your shoulders. Let your body ease into submission. That's it. If your fingers are tingling, that's normal because it's touching someone else other than yourself."
Arley starts shutting his eyes, although he couldn't stop blinking them.
"Whatever thoughts you have in your mind right now, acknowledge them and then let them go. Clear your mind of all thoughts. Think of only a blank, empty void of nothingness that's absolutely worthless. Don't forget to breathe. Breathe. Inhale."
Every minute that passes by, Arley's head bobs like apples in a rusted bucket. He knew he wasn't capable of many things, but thinking, that's something he mastered a long time ago. Thinking about nothing makes Arley wonder what an appropriate depiction of nothing could be.
"Ralei, relax. Don't think about it too much. Relax your shoulders. Just let whatever happens to happen. Acknowledge it and then let it go."
Buzz Lightyear closes his eyes, says his famous catchphrase and rolls on the tiny car onto the loop-de-loop racetrack. Two women, terrible actresses, pretend to hurt each other in skimpy outfits; Arley makes sure to include wrestling boots because he doesn't want to see their painted toenails digging into their thighs. An airplane smashes into another airplane, twirling around in the air for a few seconds until dropping onto a commercial airliner that explodes spectacularly. An anorexic 40 year old man stares at a television set advertising a useless product, a new spray specifically designed to get rid of that pesky ozone layer.
"If this is troubling you guys, please don't make an effort out of it. The first time is always the hardest."
Seinfeld making a joke about waves acting like burly club bouncers. Ellen Page sleeping in her comfortable bed as Arley smokes on the hotel balcony at dawn. Peggy Hill using happiness to say a dirty word. Arley,18, and his little brother,13, looking at the alarm clock beeping at midnight, holding their greasy, sweaty video game controllers. A 5 year old Arley bouncing on the couch announcing that he was 5 years old.
"Okay, now let go of your partner's hands, raise your head up and open your eyes."
The group follows his orders except Arley who already has his eyes open.
"How long was that?"
"About 30 minutes, the appropriate amount of time, I think. Now does anybody want to talk about their experience?"
Most people downgrade their "experience" as a moment of peace. Some people talk about how it was the first nap they had in weeks. Others talk about how it was a brutally difficult challenge trying not to think about all of their problems. One person feels rejuvenated. Someone else thinks it was a complete waste of time. Arley isn't sure.
"This exercise was meant to be a primary evaluation of your current state of mind. For some of us, the next few weeks will be a blessing. For others, it will be a continuous hell."
The leader's mandatory speech prompts others to speak more truthfully about their moments, admitting that it wasn't as much of a waste of time as they had believed. They even look more relaxed with less wrinkles on their faces, less visible veins.
"Okay, that's all the time we have for today. We'll meet back here next week in the same room, hopefully."
Everybody stands up from their rusted chairs and walk out of the room, leaving only the leader and Arley, his legs curled up on the chair.
"Arley, I was a little disappointed that you didn't share your experience to the group. You looked very eager to talk in the beginning."
"Um, well, it wouldn't have mattered anyway since I don't really have anything important to say. Ever."
"Now that's ridiculous. Everyone has something important to say. I was wondering if you had some difficulty with our exercise."
"Yeah, I had a lot of trouble. I don't think I've ever had a peaceful moment in my life."
"Well," says the leader while touching Arley's shoulder, "there's always a chance to let a little bit of peace into your life. Listen, you have plenty of time now. Take a few minutes to think about what happened today and think about what the next step could be. It could take a long time but I'm sure you'll find it."
"Thanks. Have a good night."
Arley did spend the next few minutes usefully, walking to his apartment without a single gunshot wound, opening his apartment door without pulling his muscles, walking to his desk without tripping on his dirty clothes, searching for other anger management classes.
And with that, my 4-month break begins. But don't worry if you still want to get some kind of "blog" fix, the Tumblr blog is still avaliable for those services. And while you're at it, join the Facebook group or follow me on Twitter. My little brother Gary will take over the blog for now and he might post something zany so keep an eye out for that.
Saturday, January 12, 2013
Monday, January 7, 2013
The Fiftisixth One
Happy New Year everybo-...wait a minute. Oh. Uh...
It is now 2013 and many people have been wondering what intriguing developments this year will bring to all of the little children. Problem is that the little children probably won't be thinking about it that much. I always remember having a lot of difficulty remembering it was a new year when I wrote in my abnormally-sized kindergarten journal.
-------
I'd like to thank everybody who watched the first two episodes of Awkward Arley and didn't want to burn me at the stake shortly after. We will be working on more episodes in the next few months but it will be a challenge for the Awkward Arley crew to surpass the quality of those two episodes and a lot of pressure is on me to deliver something worth watching. At the same time, I've been working on two screenplays, two short stories, and the newly established Random Chatterings podcast. At the same time, same time, I've had to focus on my schoolwork more seriously than in previous years which explains why the past few months have been very lacking in terms of content. An unexpected development has been the amount of incredibly self-defacing jokes I've written that I've become very desperate in wanting to tell in the form of another standup routine. I've been researching/brainstorming various formats so that I could potentially share these jokes publicly whether it be an audio recording or a video to post on my channel.
--------
My winter vacation has been nothing much but video games, resting, and writing jokes that I can't tell a single soul without them burning me like they would have burned a witch in the Renaissance. All in all, it's been a pretty good vacation: I got to hang out with my family constantly (mostly my brother) and Santa bought me a bunch of amazing movies and video games for Christmas. The unfortunate thing about my living dominion or fortress of solitude is that i live with mein fuhrer (German for the leader). now dont get me wrong, I love my family but there is always that one person that you jsut dont want in your family but they still have to be there and you just have to put up with it. That my friends, companions, and strange people who are reading this because of pity, is my aunt. Now the thing that just annoys me is that she...is the MEANING of perfectionist; So, you can see how we dont really get along. My aunt is not one of those normal clean freaks, ohh no, clean freaks themselves would call her insane; she also has super hearing so if i open a bag of chips too loud, open, not close, OPEN a door too loudly or even breath too loudly, she will rain on you like god rained on the Egyptians, no wait..at least god apologized. She usually warns you that if you do "something wrong" again, she'll rip your head off. She talks to me and my brother when ever we do something wrong as if were retarded, like one time we finished eating and one of us forgot to put our chair back inside, we went to our room to go get away from it all in our paradox of wonders called "videogames". She called BOTH of us and talked to us exactly like this: "hey, did you know that when your finished eating, most people push in their chairs" now, you can just imagin the thoughts going on in me and my brother's heads, like telling her to shut the fuck up or just hitting her with a chair (my brother is insane) . She talked to us like if we dont know what manners or politeness is; the only reason we cant argue with the creature of perfection, is because SHE IS GODLIKE! Everything she says is right, and the way she does it is right EVERYTHING ELSE IS WRONG! Anywho...mein fuher just runs the whole damn house. Now here is where i just want to slap her and my brother is thinking of more medieval objects to damage her head with (he told me a mace). when she leaves for work, I can clearly hear her in spanish "oh my poor dogs, I really dont want to leave you with them i'm so sorry my baby's hopefully you will still be alive when I come back". Yes aunt...yes we cant take care of two dogs, in fact, for breakfast i was going to feed them rat poison! a nutritious breakfast! The thing that most annoys me is that every once and while, her back hurts and she cant do a damn thing, so she bothers everyone less (my brother calls this the best days ever) but, even when she is practically on crutches...SHE STILL CLEANS! It just pains me to see an aging woman in pain and just causing herself more pain, and not being able to help because she thinks im so destructive that i can burn down the house with a water gun. Still, Im glad i came to expirence new expirence, new ideas, and definintly, new video games, this has been a great time and im so sad to go and leave it all...but hey...there' still summer break right?
---------
Hey, get off the computer!!
Sorry about that. My little brother, Gary, took over for a bit while I was feeding the dogs rat poison. Which reminds me...I'd like to formally announce my brother's promotion as an admin to the blog! What this means is that he will also be posting things here from time to time. You can find him on Google+ with the name Shadow or under the blog section "The Information Survey".
-----------
Every year, I wonder why I continue to maintain this blog with the frequency that I have been. I'll admit my only audience is the faithful Facebook group that checks up on my blog from time to time and even then, only half of the group ever goes to it; the other half, I feel like I'm just pestering them for my attention. If any of you do feel that way, please feel free to leave the group whenever you'd like. I won't be upset if you do. The only people who know what's been going on personally in my life are my closest friends, my fraternity brothers, and my family simply because I'm not and never have been very comfortable with sharing my life with the outside world, which would explain why the input on the blog has always strictly been previously written projects. Someone once told me that it is a challenge to write things since they become more and more personal the more time you devote to the project, so by that criteria, I have been very personal with the material I've posted thus far. As much as I've enjoyed working on this blog, I realize that at this point, the blog has become a major distraction from the more important things in life. My grades have suffered heavily from pointlessly building up "fantasy" projects that never have a solid foundation and I'm at the risk of getting academic probation. I can technically attribute this risk to laziness but I will admit this blog has also been a part of it. What this means is that I will be taking an indefinite break from the blog as I reassess what my reasons for being in college are. My lifelong dream is to tell stories that change/challenge people's lives but I haven't taken this goal seriously recently. This break will be a necessary refresher not only for the blog followers but also for me. I will post something else this weekend but it will be the last thing I post until I return from the break in May, when I return to the City of Smog once again. To the approximately 300 friends I have on Facebook, I'm sorry I haven't checked up on all of you. That doesn't mean I will be trying to, it just means I'm sorry that I haven't but as I've told my really good friend, saying sorry is my moral obligation for committing unspeakable atrocities (like telling someone how I feel about them). That kind of thinking can emotionally drain me. With all that's been said, I always keep asking what is the point of this blog? What is the point of investing months on a post that I'm never completely satisfied with? Have I been completely honest with my commitment to being a writer? I honestly don't think so. What will four months without the blog do for me? I have no idea. Maybe nothing. Nothing at all. What will it do for you all? Either way, I'd like to thank everyone for sticking around for as long as they have reading the inane ramblings of a complete lunatic on a weekly/monthly basis. Other than my own selfish pursuits, you guys have always been a reason to try to be as entertaining a writer as I've tried to be these past couple of years. I know my humor is really difficult to understand, fuck, at times, I have to remind myself why I thought a certain idea was so goddamn funny in the first place. I will occasionally update the Facebook group itself with pictures/videos and the Tumblr blog will always be there if you want to see images I feel are worthy of being reposted based on my (non-existent) criteria. I leave you all with a joke I wrote recently: I think it's really depressing to talk to other people because it reminds me of how much of a fucking liar I am.
Thank you all for your time, attention, patience, and respect. I'll see you in May.
Your misguided moron,
Arley Rodriguez
It is now 2013 and many people have been wondering what intriguing developments this year will bring to all of the little children. Problem is that the little children probably won't be thinking about it that much. I always remember having a lot of difficulty remembering it was a new year when I wrote in my abnormally-sized kindergarten journal.
-------
I'd like to thank everybody who watched the first two episodes of Awkward Arley and didn't want to burn me at the stake shortly after. We will be working on more episodes in the next few months but it will be a challenge for the Awkward Arley crew to surpass the quality of those two episodes and a lot of pressure is on me to deliver something worth watching. At the same time, I've been working on two screenplays, two short stories, and the newly established Random Chatterings podcast. At the same time, same time, I've had to focus on my schoolwork more seriously than in previous years which explains why the past few months have been very lacking in terms of content. An unexpected development has been the amount of incredibly self-defacing jokes I've written that I've become very desperate in wanting to tell in the form of another standup routine. I've been researching/brainstorming various formats so that I could potentially share these jokes publicly whether it be an audio recording or a video to post on my channel.
--------
My winter vacation has been nothing much but video games, resting, and writing jokes that I can't tell a single soul without them burning me like they would have burned a witch in the Renaissance. All in all, it's been a pretty good vacation: I got to hang out with my family constantly (mostly my brother) and Santa bought me a bunch of amazing movies and video games for Christmas. The unfortunate thing about my living dominion or fortress of solitude is that i live with mein fuhrer (German for the leader). now dont get me wrong, I love my family but there is always that one person that you jsut dont want in your family but they still have to be there and you just have to put up with it. That my friends, companions, and strange people who are reading this because of pity, is my aunt. Now the thing that just annoys me is that she...is the MEANING of perfectionist; So, you can see how we dont really get along. My aunt is not one of those normal clean freaks, ohh no, clean freaks themselves would call her insane; she also has super hearing so if i open a bag of chips too loud, open, not close, OPEN a door too loudly or even breath too loudly, she will rain on you like god rained on the Egyptians, no wait..at least god apologized. She usually warns you that if you do "something wrong" again, she'll rip your head off. She talks to me and my brother when ever we do something wrong as if were retarded, like one time we finished eating and one of us forgot to put our chair back inside, we went to our room to go get away from it all in our paradox of wonders called "videogames". She called BOTH of us and talked to us exactly like this: "hey, did you know that when your finished eating, most people push in their chairs" now, you can just imagin the thoughts going on in me and my brother's heads, like telling her to shut the fuck up or just hitting her with a chair (my brother is insane) . She talked to us like if we dont know what manners or politeness is; the only reason we cant argue with the creature of perfection, is because SHE IS GODLIKE! Everything she says is right, and the way she does it is right EVERYTHING ELSE IS WRONG! Anywho...mein fuher just runs the whole damn house. Now here is where i just want to slap her and my brother is thinking of more medieval objects to damage her head with (he told me a mace). when she leaves for work, I can clearly hear her in spanish "oh my poor dogs, I really dont want to leave you with them i'm so sorry my baby's hopefully you will still be alive when I come back". Yes aunt...yes we cant take care of two dogs, in fact, for breakfast i was going to feed them rat poison! a nutritious breakfast! The thing that most annoys me is that every once and while, her back hurts and she cant do a damn thing, so she bothers everyone less (my brother calls this the best days ever) but, even when she is practically on crutches...SHE STILL CLEANS! It just pains me to see an aging woman in pain and just causing herself more pain, and not being able to help because she thinks im so destructive that i can burn down the house with a water gun. Still, Im glad i came to expirence new expirence, new ideas, and definintly, new video games, this has been a great time and im so sad to go and leave it all...but hey...there' still summer break right?
---------
Hey, get off the computer!!
Sorry about that. My little brother, Gary, took over for a bit while I was feeding the dogs rat poison. Which reminds me...I'd like to formally announce my brother's promotion as an admin to the blog! What this means is that he will also be posting things here from time to time. You can find him on Google+ with the name Shadow or under the blog section "The Information Survey".
-----------
Every year, I wonder why I continue to maintain this blog with the frequency that I have been. I'll admit my only audience is the faithful Facebook group that checks up on my blog from time to time and even then, only half of the group ever goes to it; the other half, I feel like I'm just pestering them for my attention. If any of you do feel that way, please feel free to leave the group whenever you'd like. I won't be upset if you do. The only people who know what's been going on personally in my life are my closest friends, my fraternity brothers, and my family simply because I'm not and never have been very comfortable with sharing my life with the outside world, which would explain why the input on the blog has always strictly been previously written projects. Someone once told me that it is a challenge to write things since they become more and more personal the more time you devote to the project, so by that criteria, I have been very personal with the material I've posted thus far. As much as I've enjoyed working on this blog, I realize that at this point, the blog has become a major distraction from the more important things in life. My grades have suffered heavily from pointlessly building up "fantasy" projects that never have a solid foundation and I'm at the risk of getting academic probation. I can technically attribute this risk to laziness but I will admit this blog has also been a part of it. What this means is that I will be taking an indefinite break from the blog as I reassess what my reasons for being in college are. My lifelong dream is to tell stories that change/challenge people's lives but I haven't taken this goal seriously recently. This break will be a necessary refresher not only for the blog followers but also for me. I will post something else this weekend but it will be the last thing I post until I return from the break in May, when I return to the City of Smog once again. To the approximately 300 friends I have on Facebook, I'm sorry I haven't checked up on all of you. That doesn't mean I will be trying to, it just means I'm sorry that I haven't but as I've told my really good friend, saying sorry is my moral obligation for committing unspeakable atrocities (like telling someone how I feel about them). That kind of thinking can emotionally drain me. With all that's been said, I always keep asking what is the point of this blog? What is the point of investing months on a post that I'm never completely satisfied with? Have I been completely honest with my commitment to being a writer? I honestly don't think so. What will four months without the blog do for me? I have no idea. Maybe nothing. Nothing at all. What will it do for you all? Either way, I'd like to thank everyone for sticking around for as long as they have reading the inane ramblings of a complete lunatic on a weekly/monthly basis. Other than my own selfish pursuits, you guys have always been a reason to try to be as entertaining a writer as I've tried to be these past couple of years. I know my humor is really difficult to understand, fuck, at times, I have to remind myself why I thought a certain idea was so goddamn funny in the first place. I will occasionally update the Facebook group itself with pictures/videos and the Tumblr blog will always be there if you want to see images I feel are worthy of being reposted based on my (non-existent) criteria. I leave you all with a joke I wrote recently: I think it's really depressing to talk to other people because it reminds me of how much of a fucking liar I am.
Thank you all for your time, attention, patience, and respect. I'll see you in May.
Your misguided moron,
Arley Rodriguez
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