Things You Don’t Want To Do

Posted April 18th, 2005 by Sean Williams

I am now going to reveal how incredibly easy my life has been, because I’m going to, off the top of my head, describe the ten things I can think of right now that I really don’t ever want to do again.

10. Be Adjudicated As an Instrumentalist. I have played any number of instruments in any number of situations and then anxiously awaited the result, and it is absurd. You get numbers back from three judges, none of whom heard the same performance, and you have to wade through the contrary bullshit that they say about pitch and timing and rhythm. The truth is, I’ve always done pretty well in these things, but it’s just misery.

9. Have a Teacher. I’ve spoken enough about this, but even the teachers I’ve like have been collosal pricks. All you shitheads who think that because you’re teaching school, you’re changing the future of American and molding tomorrow’s minds? Just remember how *small and cruel* you can be, because every child in that room is picking up on it.

8. Sand the Ceiling. No, this isn’t a euphemism, I’m talking about sanding down the joint compound between two suspended pieces of wallboard. I can’t complain about doing this yesterday because it acually affected me in such a way that I had to stop and let Jordana do most of it. Okay, okay, all of it. I’m confident enough in my masculinity to allow for Jordana to be tougher than me.

7. Be Made Unconscious. I’ve been knocked the fuck out several times in my life, and only once was it ever in a hospital bed. Every other time, the fall was nearly as bad as the blow, or the drug, or the drink. I’ve had it. I’ve been knocked out… I’d say twelve times in my life. That’s enough. If I have to go under for an operation, I’m sure I’ll have bigger problems than this, but I just don’t want to ever have to do it again.

6. Get Divorced. There are more reasons to not want to do this than the standard “I Love My Wife” thing. I was pretty unhappy in my first marriage and it was still barely worth the pain and humiliation of divorce. It is admitting to the whole word that that party you threw for yourself, that you made everyone show up to and bring presents, wherein you smugly declared that you would succeed where more often than not everyone else fails, that all of that was an enormous misunderstanding on your part because you are just *dumb*. I have failed at things too numerous to mention, from high school to college to my professional aspirations to my dedication to my friends, and getting divorced is, by a huge margin, was the most humiliating failure of my life.

5. Hustle Business Contacts at a Party. It almost isn’t fair to put this on the list because I went to these parties, got drunk, and started trouble. I’m terrible at this, I’m on the outside looking in *always*, and if I’m not I make sure and alienate the crap out of myself. Unfortunately, this is one thing I am almost definitely *going to do* again.

4. Be Unprepared for an Audition. This is the worst I’ve ever felt over a two hour span. There is no comparison to that sick, didn’t-do-the-summer-reading feeling combined with a room full of actors with perfect quaffs and set jaws. The world of an actor is a horrible world that draws in the worst sort of people who are willing to do the most reprehensible things to get ahead, and you are facing these people armed with a ten month old headshot, a reasonably memorized two minute monologue and a teaspoon of talent. You really don’t want to be in that position.

3. Find Out Someone’s Dead. Obviously, this is gonna happen again. But, man, you find ways of not forgiving yourself for shit.

2. Meet Some Girl’s Parents. I said it at the time, so I don’t mind repeating it now, I got married the first time because I didn’t want to have to meet some other girl’s whole damn family. I think we get our claws in pretty deep the first couple of times you sit and talk with some girl’s mom all by yourself and she finds you charming. When the break-up happens, it’s just a nightmare.

1. Spend More Time Working Than Not For More Than Four Months. I think the threshhold is four months. If you disappear for four months, you still have friends with similar lives when you raise your head. If you wait five, then your best friend might have met a girl, dated her, broken up with her and be dating someone else, and then you’re at a party realizing you missed a *whole chapter*. And maybe it isn’t that important, but there was some good jokes, some melancholy pain, some strange behavior, and now it has entered the “too long a story to explain” area, and you’re basically meeting your good friends all over again. And that sucks.

BONUS- Write A Blog With An Arbitrary Number of Things In It Off The Top Of Your Head When You Should Be Working On Something Else. Yeah, I’m not ever doing *that* again.