ALL OF THE TURNAROUND WAS PUT INTO PLAY EITHER BY DIVINE OBSERVATION OR DIVINE INTERVENTION.
DIVINE OBSERVATION: ME NOTICING MY OWN PATTERNS OF BULLSHIT. I GET REVELATIONS (See Part One). SOMETIMES THEY STICK AND HELP ME MAKE SHIFTS AWAY FROM SELF-DESTRUCTIVE BEHAVIORS. IT’S PRETTY COOL.
One of the revelations I had that I forgot to list in the last post was that, for the longest time, I had been acting like a slave to convention. In actuality, I don’t have much time for it. So this created a big disconnect between my true self and my acting-like-I-care-about-that self. I discovered that I had to get a genuine kick out of things on my own terms or I would just wither and die. I’m like a comedy rose.
DIVINE INTERVENTION: INSPIRATION FROM BEYOND THE OUTER LIMITS OF THE BRAIN. NOT SURE WHO OR WHAT TO THANK, BUT THANKS.
Sometimes the Universe has a way of whispering its message to you in mysterious ways. Often, I have found, these ways involve images expressed on the surfaces of retail goods.
Remember the Owls-on-Everything craze? Well, circa 2013, the world began to see images of owls imprinted, carved or embossed onto any number of retail items. They were on everything. Earrings, sweatshirts and pencils were all of a sudden staring at us, and we couldn’t stop staring back. We were hooked. And for good reason.
The owl is a sign of wisdom, mystery, darkness, protection and awareness. It’s also the symbol of the Illuminati. Or “Owluminati” as it’s known to the Freemasons.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PHYfTlvjSu8&authuser=0
I don’t really relate to this because I’m not big into Lizard People theories. Sorry, David Icke fans! But it’s undeniable that owls have always been powerful figures. They’ve featured prominently in the lore of many cultures, and they’ve got this rare combination of traits – they are both goofy-looking AF (as fuck),
and also extremely terrifying.
I once had a school counselor who uncannily resembled an owl. While she was mesmerizing to me, I never actually listened to anything she said. I just remember wanting to both laugh and cry whenever I was in a room alone with her. I don’t know how much she helped me. It’s hard to say. It took me eleven years to graduate from university. HOOOO’s to blame? (couldn’t resist).
Anyway, after the Owls-on-Everything Era, circa 2015, the stars started to appear. Everywhere. It was now the Stars-on-Everything Era. Stars on shirts. Stars on plates. Stars on cups. Shoes with stars on them. Star journals. Star pajamas.
This was undoubtedly my call to destiny. I’m sure now that the Universe started putting stars everywhere to signal to me that….it was time for me to take my rightful place among the Constellations. It is clear. Or maybe I’m delusional, but it’s still clear.
Yet, at the time, I didn’t get it. I just thought stars were the new owls. Wrong. What more did I need? Well….
In late 2015, after The School went bankrupt, I got a stop-gap job for a few months doing TA work in London schools with the agency I had applied to but turned work down from in late 2012 (see earlier post). I returned in need, and they were glad to put me to work. It was predictably uninspiring work, and validated the decision I had made a couple years earlier to never do that kind of work again. But tough times call for tough measures. And it was just temporary. But it still sucked. Low pay, low joy, low reward. Except for the stars. As you probably know, there are little star stickers all over the place in most schools. Teachers give them to students to praise them and encourage them in their good efforts. Well, I love the stars too. Maybe it’s the pervasive thanklessness in public school jobs. Maybe it’s my delusional identification with my five-year old self. Maybe it’s the fact that I never really got stars from my teachers when I was a kid. Whatever the reason, I love me some little star stickers. And the last school I was placed in had tons of them! Gold ones, silver ones, red ones, green ones. Even purple ones for gods sake. And they came in different sizes. I couldn’t get enough. When I’d tidy up, I’d find them all over the place. At first, it was just the old lint-covered ones I’d pick up. Then I’d start tearing them off the full sheets, trying hard to hide the offense by skimming off the side. I started a collection. I’d OCD-ily forage for equal numbers of gold and red and get disappointed if I couldn’t find them. Occasionally, a large blue one would appear. That was a rare bonus. Like finding a black pearl.
At home, I’d be emptying out a pocket and stars would pour out. The worse the job got, the more stars I’d accumulate. They had become my go-to relief from the harsh realities of being a lowly underappreciated temp. A little wink from the Universe saying, ‘Don’t worry, Kid. You’re destined for greater things. Bide your time.” So I did. But when I’d see one it would be, “Oooh, let’s have a little star. That’s a nice pick-me-up. They’ve got tons. And that teacher’s mean as shit. She never gives them out anyway. Hey, she probably doesn’t even know this is here. It’s mine now, Biyatch! Haha!” I had turned a corner. By the end of a month, I had amassed enough stars to create a parallel solar system on the walls of my bedroom. But there were cracks in the firmament. I was starting to star shed. They’d fall off and out of me everywhere I went. I knew there might be a problem when, during an awkward dating experience, I reached out my hand to shake the other dater’s hand, and when I pulled it away, saw a glittery green star stuck to the hairs on his knuckles. He looked down. “So, I guess that means a second date?” It didn’t, although I probably would’ve shagged him to get the star back. See, the problem was that this particular star was one of the rare ones I’d scored from the school. It had come off the frowny bad-breath principal’s desk, and was unusual because it had glitter on it. I had taken it while waiting for a meeting to start in his office. I knew it wasn’t his because he was clearly allergic to glitter. Presumably, it belonged to someone who didn’t deserve to get it back because they had committed an inconceivable crime against the school state. So, naturally, it would become part of my collection. That star had a story. It had danger and risk and meaning. It was a symbol of justice and rebellion against a cruel authoritarian regime. I had fought for it, and I was not about to let it meet it’s fate stuck between the hairs and follicles of this forgettable specimen. “I’m sorry, but would you mind?”, I said, as I wrestled it out from among the hairs. “It belongs to my niece. It’s the only one she’s got. Thanks. I’ll call you.” When I got home, I laminated that star and put it in a safe place. As for Dude, we never did have a second date. What can I say? It wasn’t in the stars (sorry for that).
Anyway, the star thing didn’t end with the stickers. As the Stars-On-Everything Era gathered speed, kids had them on socks, erasers, balls. All kinds of things would go missing in the classroom and in the play areas. Kids drop things all the time. And it’s not like there weren’t millions of stars and star items to replace them if they did go lost. So whaddevz. “Does little Manson really need his star muffler? It’s frikkin’ June. By the time it’s Winter again, he won’t even be into stars. He’ll want hats or baseballs or seahorses. Kid has no respect for what this muffler represents. Mine.” I had become an out of control star hoarder. And why? Because I felt powerless and unloved. My real life was so unstellar. I just wanted to feel that star power, even if it was fantasy. Then, one day, it hit me. The Universe really was putting all these stars everywhere to push me back onto my path. I don’t know why, but it all made sense. The stars were just signs. They were whispers in the air. Twinkling. Winking. Smiling. Encouraging. And they didn’t need to physically exist in my personal space to have validity. I didn’t need to pilfer them and hoard them anymore. It was enough knowing they were there. Around. Like little cosmic life coaches cheering me out of the mundane realms of temp work and into the creative cosmos of self expression. Trippy, huh? Anyway, I took back the sheets of star stickers, the eraser, the shoe laces, the muffler. The bike helmet. The scooter. They all magically reappeared in the classroom and in the lost and found. Nobody noticed. But I had learned my lesson. I had transcended. (Note: I never gave back the green glitter star. That was earned.)
In a broken eggshell of a nutshell, the things that made me turn around and strengthen my resolve to do comedy were the very things that made me sad and walk away from it in the first place. The fact that nobody gave a shit whether or not I did it, and that it was too late by the conventional statistical standards of success. Also, the realization that there was not a job in the world that I wanted to go to every day for the rest of my life that involved being serious and following rules. Yuck. So, I knew I had to find a way to get out of it. Eventually.
RUNNING ON ASHES 
