Atonement

You may be cruising Facebook today and noticing that lots of your Jewish friends are making ironic comedic posts on their Facebook walls (Sorry for partying LOLZ) and that all of that person's Jewish friends are liking that post. I did a bit of research into it and it turns out that Tuesday at sundown to Wednesday at sundown is the Jewish day of Atonement. Now I know what you're thinking, that sounds pretty rad, take a Wednesday off paid and watch that sick James McAvoy film that got snubbed for best picture.

Unfortunately that is not the case, it's a day to apologize. Now if you are Jewish and work a full time job, you're having a pretty solid fortnight. Last week you got to take Monday off for Rosh Hashana aka your New Year and now you are taking a midweek sabbatical the following week. You guys have it figured out. And not only do you benefit from your own double whammy, you will gladly take the Christmas/New Years break too. And we wonder why Jewish people run the world, it's because they are smart enough to demand an additional handful of days off each year. Well played.

So I thought about it and I realized now is as good a time as any to think about what I'm sorry for. I've had a really hard time toeing the line lately between living as recklessly as possible, but remaining a productive member of society. But in that logic my life seems to be a living contradiction.

Let me explain.

Last week I was made full time at work. Instead of just being a PA for this production company I am now straight up this dude's assistant. What does that mean? Not much, a $25 bump in my day rate and I get to work in between projects if he can afford it. Regardless, it was an event worth celebrating in my eyes, so to celebrate establishing myself as just a tad bit more grown up than I was before, I immediately went on a 5 day bender culminating with me swimming in the Pacific Ocean in my jeans Saturday morning at 10AM drinking a bottle of wine. That is not how someone my age is supposed to live, even if they are celebrating something.

Furthermore, Friday night I accosted my neighbors for not staying up later than 4am to party with me and I took a Craigslist ad out Saturday afternoon when I couldn't convince anyone to go to beerfest with me. I become with myself Sunday evening and deleted it, but it went something like this:

Bros of Craigslist. I come to you in my hour of need, I am seeking a fun group of debaucherous kids that are down for whatever. I'm 25 and I like to drink...a lot. I give zero fucks in almost any situation. I exist for the soul purpose of having fun. As I have grown up my friends from the frat and girls that I went to school with have become disgusted with my eroding morals. I have similarly grown disgusted with their notions of maturity and responsibility. I look at babies and wedding rings and I want to vomit a four loko on them. I want a group that can commit to going out every weekend night, hard. Day drinking and rallying, Hitting on chicks without any dignity or regard for others. My current friends are great, but we're just slowly starting to drift in different directions. I want to be worse than I was in college, not this hybrid of yuppie America that society deems the hip twentysomething. Please respond to me with a picture of what is in your fridge right now and a crazy story from last night. I will respond if interested.

It was the most pathetic thing ever written. I would honestly have had better luck cabbing it to campus and buying a bunch of under grads a round of shots. It was a low moment for me. And I think that's what I'm most sorry for. Sure I have said inappropriate things to people in the past, but whatever, I'm a writer, I believe in freedom of speech and the freedom to react to that any way you chose. People have the right to be offended, but that's on you, not the offender. People are offended by the way I live my life, I'm offended by 3rd trimester belly photos on Facebook.

However what I am truly sorry for, is expecting people to conform to my standards. In college I was a leader, not so much because I was smarter or more anything than people, I was just the loudest and maybe the tallest and most outspoken so people conformed to my will. As I have grown older I have lost that power and it causes me to be super angry and insecure sometimes. The people around me that I care about have told me I am intimidating and brash, like I'm scary or something. And that really bothers me, so what I intend to do in this coming year is to live my life exactly how I would like to live it. If that involves raging until the next day, so be it. But I won't drag anyone else down with me unless they want to come along for the ride. I can't expect my peers to feel the same way I do anymore. Different strokes for different folks. I live a manic lifestyle, I've become quite bipolar, it's almost as if I'm devolving into one of those insane writers. I stay up for 42 hours writing something, decide it's shit and delete it. Not that I think that in order to be creative one must behave like Hunter S Thompson, but it kind of seems that's the road I've chosen.

In closing, I apologize to all the people I have hurt and offended over the years. I don't intend to be rude, that's just who I am. I am no longer going to bitch and moan about your lameness, I will not drag you to the dark side, but on the flip side, let me be me and reserve your judgment for someone who gives a fuck.