thesarabond's TV-Life Recap

It’s been a while since I have scooped up and thrown down thoughts about the goings on in my world, of course not counting the word spitting of poetry that I have recently purged from some sick inner lining of emotion I thought had passed when I went through puberty.

Alas, I find myself surrounded by muses, contemplating memory, quitting nasty habits, taking on a new habit, hobby, reviewing the structure of my “television show” as this season comes to a close, engrossing myself in the world of this children’s novel I just can’t shake and building unbelievable muscle in my legs, especially my thighs. None-the-less, I am still alive, which every now and then I have to sit back and really take that in.

First, let me start off saying, I do not believe in writer’s block, it is just an excuse for laziness. Pull your pants up, turn off the TV, put your fricken cell phone on silent and just allow yourself to disappear from this realm and awake in another. If all else fails, Urth coffee. No lie, this has become my new habit. Over the past few weeks as I push myself to get through the dullness of my everyday job (which consists of numbers and answering phones, pretty mindless) I find myself sitting in front of the computer and writing. And must put blame where blame is due. I stumbled upon the cocaine of all coffees and recommend it’s intensity to all of you who need an extra kick in the ass.

I have quit smoking cigarettes, cable television and negative people, not particularly in that order though. Cable television was an interesting cancellation. And I can really only explain it as once I stopped living vicariously through characters lives on television, I started living my own life.

Cigarettes, this is just something that should have been done a long time ago, I just never wanted to and blame my OFD (Oral Fixation Disorder) seeing as I have an OFA (Oral Fixation Addiction). I did it cold turkey and I didn’t do it for anyone else but myself. And the determining factor came on Sunday night when I was riding my bike back from downtown with four of my guy friends. They were all on road bikes, one fixie (fixed gear bike, one gear, highest, you stop pedaling, the back wheel stops rotating), three of which had already done Wolfpack (it’s not a race, it’s a 40 mile hustle through LA in less than 2 hours) and three are also on a team for the Wolfpack: All City Race.

I, however, am riding a heavy mountain bike that I transformed into a road bike. And about two months ago stopped complaining about how hard it was to ride and how much I really wanted a road bike and decided to make this bike work for me. And so it goes that I hustled it with the boys that night, drafted Brett and Ryan and stayed with the group. As we got back to our starting point I knew what I wanted more and smoking cigarettes was not the champion of this ride. What’s more, without them I have taken an extra step of control over my life, it’s another freedom notch to add to the belt, one more strength and an ounce of respect I gain for myself.

Which leads me to negative people (laughing to self). I am done with the complaining and the anger and the constant nagging of what bad things have happened or of what people don’t have, can’t find, figure out, deal with, lack of, too much too fast or even just nothing at all. I’d like to say that before you allow words to fall out of your mouth and have the dirty job of sweeping them back up, think. And this comes from my father. He never yelled at me growing up he would just look at me with a very disappointing eye piercing stare and ask, in his South Philadelphia Italian accent, “Did you think, Sar? Did you stop and think? Next time you need to think before you do.” And his favorite, “You’re lucky you get a next time. Think, Sar!”

That being said, eight months ago I decided to laugh all the time and every time a negative thing happened to me and/or around me, I would do my very best (like the “Little Engine That Could”) and find the positive. It is a difficult feat, but it can be accomplished. In fact, I have. I don’t allow anyone in my life with negative outlook to stay for very long, in fact, once detected; I do one of a few things. One, I stand and listen, really listen, not just pretend. And then every time they say something negative I hit them with a positive. A few pointers I have taken with me thus far and used a great deal of are as follows:

1. When someone is angry with you. I suggest stepping out of the situation and wonder what about themselves they are most angry with. Most of the time, it is not always about you – good thing to remember, not everything is about you. Once you figure that into play, forgive them. If they cannot see past the end of their own nose, have pity and move on. There is nothing you can change here; you can only set by example.

2. When someone is so low they just nag and complain and everything that comes out of their mouth is sadness. I only stay awhile; I listen and do my best to turn the few things that they are harping on into some positive outlook. Usually, they have mulled over their insecurities of the present situations so much so and dug themselves into a hole so deep that they are the only ones that can make their own ladder and climb out. When that has been assessed, I exit the situation immediately. As there is no point in taking on that bad energy seeing as how I could possibly inflict it upon some harmless positive soul and not even realize it. Suggestion: cut and run.

3. When you are faced with a situation where the whole is negative and there doesn’t seem to be any way out. I remind myself that there is always a way out. And I close my eyes and take a deep breath. And then blindly, one step in front of the other, I attack the situation with both hands free and, most importantly, a positive mind. For there is nothing worse than a freaking out, closed minded individual. Just don’t forget to breathe, oxygen is your friend.

Lately, I have found myself pondering “memory.” To think that without it how would we react - Emotional, apathetic or just detached? As individuals, the events that I remember, replay and digest are most certainly not the same as others, hence point of view. I take everything in and I mean that in the most sincere way, from a writer’s point of view. I love to be the fly on the wall when I don’t have the need to entertain. I love to sit back and watch the people around me and the actions that roll from one to the other and snowball into an adventurous muse I later jot down for use in some latter part of my writings through life.

Just recently, I found myself deep within the trenches of the Los Angeles Bike Scene, Midnight Ridazz. And it is anything but dull. The people are fantastic. There is not one individual I have met that has turned me off or away from the nightly, and daily, rides that really pull the community together in such a family-type atmosphere. And I mean all over Los Angeles, from the beach to the valley to downtown. It’s a growing culture of cyclists that just want to ride. How about that, no cars, just bike riding.

I have also taken up photography – a hobby, I guess you could say. My friend Tim has this awesome camera and would bring it out on rides with us. At times he would hand it over to me to take a few shots before putting away. And then, something brilliant happened, I started framing stories in still pictures and fell in love with photography. I think I blame the lack of being on a production set, but either or, I am fascinated and entertained. I have been guided to shoot “raw” with the camera and have taken up Photoshop’s Lightroom, which I taught myself how to do over the course of one evening. I have to say that each time I shoot (depending on how inebriated I was) each session has come out better and better. I highly suggest you teach yourself something that you have always wanted to do but just never got around to do it. Now is your chance, do it!

Okay, so from here on down, I’ll be brief! I am deep into this children’s novel I have been writing – it’s the most exciting piece of work I have done in a long time. I have also taken to a new short, a bicycle film – which was inspired by the latest Batman movie, and yes, I structured and character developed the whole thing before the night was over. Progress is to do a little every day, feels great when you end up doing a whole lot more because of accidental creativity.

And yet, here I stand as August comes to a close, so does this season of my imaginary “TV Show” (hehehe.. yea.. I know). But this last month has been an interesting one, interesting in the way of how season finales usually go. And all who have been a part of these action sequences, character development humps, tragic accidents and large juts of trouble waiting around the next midpoint have also been there for the triumphant “My 8=, your ” moments and large portions of “Brett’s Mom” ordering – you know who you are and most assuredly, have been laughing right along with me. Anyone can structure their lives in some way that best fits that added flair for the dramatic, if not, I’ll help – it’s fun!

So, I shake my head and smile, as I am more in anticipation of what will happen next season! This past year has been a rainbow of characters, most that won’t be returning, a few the audience still enjoys, however, they only pop up every now and then. And now there are a few new characters, some really interesting never-before-seen on this show characters, with flavor that adds chaos and even some comedy to lighten up the very serious world that Sara Bond rotates in.

And now that this masturbation has climaxed, I leave you with a preview for the upcoming season:

eh.. here's a little something: the show won't take place entirely in LA this coming season, some travel is in the works, look forward to some major film production action on sets (yaye!), maybe a little political rising, it is possible for love, some major goals that have been set will be made, maybe just maybe some supporting characters will move on, there could be a loss, and, well, SPOILER ALERT! SPOILER ALERT! the beginning of this season could be the setup to take the last half of next season in an entirely altered direction, one the audience won't be expecting but knew was coming all along!