A while ago, one of the new hires at the restaurant I work at asked me, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" She said that to everyone who was working that night, but the question was interesting given that she's a whole... oh god, I just did the math and it's awful.
Nine. Nine years younger than me.
God damn.
Creeping death aside, today I found out she might no longer be working with us because her folks don't want her working to 11PM. It was a little strange to hear considering I've been working to 11 or later for the past 7 years, but she's still a youngin' and you gotta respect your elders. Even if she "brags" about smoking cigarettes and drinking Four Lokos. (For real.)
Nine. Nine years younger than me.
God damn.
Creeping death aside, today I found out she might no longer be working with us because her folks don't want her working to 11PM. It was a little strange to hear considering I've been working to 11 or later for the past 7 years, but she's still a youngin' and you gotta respect your elders. Even if she "brags" about smoking cigarettes and drinking Four Lokos. (For real.)
Anyway, her original question got me to thinking. For a long time, I thought I knew.
A long, long time ago, I... don't remember exactly what I wanted to do. Thinking about my elementary school and early junior high experiences, I can't really recall anything career-based. Without a doubt that question popped up at one point or another, like one of those go-to teacher questions for a day's lesson, but I probably put some generic response like astronaut or president. What I do remember during this time was being praised for my advanced (for my age) writing ability. I also remember doing particularly well in a spelling bee, but that's beside the point.
It gets a little blurry from there. Early junior high was a bad time for me socially, but that's a story for another time. Late junior high to high school I got really into anime and video games, thanks in no small part to Adult Swim. One of my all-time favorite animes to this day is Cowboy Bebop, back when Adult Swim's bumpers were old people swimming. Good times.
So I sought to emulate the stories I read and played. I wrote a lot and I drew a lot, both of which were... kinda cringe-worthy, though I wish I had kept up with drawing. Still, I had a sort of outline for a story I wanted to write, complete with characters and a total number of books. The way I had planned it, there would be five books, each set on a different continent complete with their own cast and stories. These stories, however, were intertwined and would eventually come to a head in the fifth book. I even planned a set of "prequel" books that would tell the story of the main book's legendary heroes and how the world came to be, and then a set of sequel books that would use the ancestors of the main book's characters.
I had written it in my old email account, however...
A long, long time ago, I... don't remember exactly what I wanted to do. Thinking about my elementary school and early junior high experiences, I can't really recall anything career-based. Without a doubt that question popped up at one point or another, like one of those go-to teacher questions for a day's lesson, but I probably put some generic response like astronaut or president. What I do remember during this time was being praised for my advanced (for my age) writing ability. I also remember doing particularly well in a spelling bee, but that's beside the point.
It gets a little blurry from there. Early junior high was a bad time for me socially, but that's a story for another time. Late junior high to high school I got really into anime and video games, thanks in no small part to Adult Swim. One of my all-time favorite animes to this day is Cowboy Bebop, back when Adult Swim's bumpers were old people swimming. Good times.
So I sought to emulate the stories I read and played. I wrote a lot and I drew a lot, both of which were... kinda cringe-worthy, though I wish I had kept up with drawing. Still, I had a sort of outline for a story I wanted to write, complete with characters and a total number of books. The way I had planned it, there would be five books, each set on a different continent complete with their own cast and stories. These stories, however, were intertwined and would eventually come to a head in the fifth book. I even planned a set of "prequel" books that would tell the story of the main book's legendary heroes and how the world came to be, and then a set of sequel books that would use the ancestors of the main book's characters.
I had written it in my old email account, however...
High school was a simpler time, but it was also a busy time. I got a new email somewhere during this time, back when gmail was invite-only and still really new. Somewhere down the line I lost the password to my email, thereby losing all the things I wrote.
Moral of that story is keep your passwords safe, but every so often I try getting into that account. I wonder what's still in there from time to time, but it's out of my hands.
I still remember a handful of things from the stories that I wrote. I may or may not incorporate them into my D&D games, but we'll see about that. And if there's any consolation to me losing all of that, I'm still very fond of planning story structure out. Hopefully one day I'll be able to get into that old account of mine and maybe one day write those books of mine.
But that... that's just an old dream.
Eric
Moral of that story is keep your passwords safe, but every so often I try getting into that account. I wonder what's still in there from time to time, but it's out of my hands.
I still remember a handful of things from the stories that I wrote. I may or may not incorporate them into my D&D games, but we'll see about that. And if there's any consolation to me losing all of that, I'm still very fond of planning story structure out. Hopefully one day I'll be able to get into that old account of mine and maybe one day write those books of mine.
But that... that's just an old dream.
Eric
No comments:
Post a Comment