“Three words to describe Kai: excitable, outspoken, scared

Kai, like a lot of people in his generation, is at once so assertive, self-assured, while also insecure and sensitive. He is so passionate about what he does but feels easily set back. He has a frenetic energy that sometimes he harnesses to do the work he wants to do, but he’s an over thinker and often gets consternated by this. He’s a deadly hopeless romantic, but similarly he puts on a hard edge to soften the blow of life’s disappointments. He loves people, and he is upset by people.”

I am in an espresso bar on Spadina, sitting at a large, square shaped wooden table, drinking an overpriced Americano (but it’s organic! Fair trade, man!). Across from me is a couple: Blue Jays (BJ) cap and Geeky Blonde (GB). GB has got her signature black rimmed glasses on, with frames large enough to not overtake her small, round, pink face. Her nose, mouse like with its upturned tip, points forward like a finger. Oddly enough, it matches BJ’s sharp nose (balanced by beautiful, drag queen lashes and light green eyes). Clad in a navy polo so deep it’s almost black, BJ sits on her right, his thick bushy eyebrows bouncing up and down while he tries to follow the nonstop chatter between GB and their future wedding planner (who I will name Jessica). Jessica looks to be in her late thirties; her long reddish blonde hair pulled back into a tight, straight, ponytail that reaches all the way down her back (type-A neurotic). Ironically, Jessica the wedding planner doesn’t have a wedding ring on. I think to myself: is this a personal choice? Is it PR thing? Is a wedding planner with a wedding ring bad luck? Or maybe she’s just never found the one. Maybe that J.Lo flick wasn’t so full of shit after all. Maybe her life is actually really funny. 

But I digress. 

I’m sitting in an espresso bar on a beautiful Saturday morning, and I don’t want to go in to work. I have four glorious hours left of my day and it kills me that at some point I will have to trek back underground, step into a long metal tube, propel myself uptown and eventually find my way out so that I can trade in the best parts of myself for something we call, the moneyz. 

It breaks my god damn heart, I tell you.

These past few weeks have been slow and methodical in its absolutely uselessness. A few bright spots here and there, but overall, my attempt at generating a career for myself is at an all time stand-still. I wrote a pilot, hated it, wrote it again, sort of liked it, and then watched a bunch of other pilots and came back around to hating it. 

(Jessica is leaving, but not before collecting her big, fat, paycheck.) 

I’ve been re-evaluating my work, trying to generate new ideas to inject into my pilot, give it greater cultural relevance, to make something with a sharper edge. Reading things that I think my characters would read, watching things I think my character would watch. I’ve been trying to live my life as the characters would (What would Roukh do? What would Sloane do? What would Bryan do?). This morning I read yesterdays Business section in The Globe because that’s something Roukh would do, he’s that kind of guy. I also discovered how much I miss reading words off of actual paper, cause you just can’t beat reading things off of actual paper. 

There are nights when I feel crazy, useless, lazy and productive all at once. I also think I might be a tad bit dyslexic. Mildly so, as I’ve noticed that I misread, mistype, and mis-do a whole lot of shit when it comes to letters and numbers… should I be worried?

One thing I’ve come to recognize as of late is my greatest weakness: self-doubt. It is paralyzing at times, and I work day in and day out to overcome it. I’ve noticed the ways it prevents me from doing what I want, when I want, and how I want. I’ve always managed to get by, just good enough to slip through the lines with out really putting myself out there. I like the safety of being a backstage. I think a lot about why this is, because I used to be incredibly motivated in the past; I loved to shine. At some point between high school and now, I lost the energy, the desire and the drive, and I don’t exactly know how to get it back.

But I have given myself five years to do this writer thing, to try and get a TV pilot into production. It’s a blue sky dream, and on some levels it’s incredibly unrealistic. But if we really do live once, if all we are are a series of cosmic, subatomic, chemical mistakes, than I owe it to my consciousness to give it all a shot. By thirty, if I don’t have a show on the air…who knows. Maybe I’ll be a retail queen for the rest of my life, but god damn, at least I tried.

I’m finally living downtown on my own.

The world is my cloister.