How to Tell if You're a Good Writer

-You're not wasting your time reading lists. Just kidding! Lists like these are a tool for self-improvement. Some might say they create a shallow, artificial economy of ego, a flawed way to seek deeply personal validation because they are crafted to create dependence, but in reality, people simply use these lists for perspective, and there's nothing wrong with that. The more egotistical thing to do is to deny this fact, which is an intellectually dishonest way of feeling like you're better than other people. People who say they don't read lists are the same ones who say they don't watch TV at parties. If you think you are better than everyone else, by all means don't read this. Go back to writing that edgy piece about selfies and FB photos of food.

-When you are reading a book, you are constantly thinking of ways to improve the text. In fact, you often will stop reading a book because you see so many changes you would make.

-People listen whenever you tell a story. If you really want to be sure, tell a long story and reveal esoteric details using advanced creative techniques. People should be captivated the entire time. If you want an easy way to test this, try telling these stories when people are busy and distracted. Maybe at the end of a dinner with friends when people are trying to leave. If they stick around, congratulations! They are captivated by your words. The more anxious they appear to leave, the better of a writer you probably are.

-Want another easy way to see if people like your stories? Read them at an open mic! If people think your story is boring, they'll approach you and tell you. People pretty much owe you a discussion. There is a tacit agreement that if a writer goes through the trouble to create something, the audience owes it to them an articulate critique.

-This goes both ways. You should always approach people and tell them what you would have done with their story. Even if it seems to be just fine as it is, it is always good to exchange ideas with other writers.

-When in doubt about whether people are really following your story, include a particularly vivid scene. Include a climactic performance scene and describe a round of applause and see how many people move their arms as though they are about to clap. Or write a sex scene and (discretely) try to see how many people are hiding erections.

-You often find yourself going out every night instead of staying in and writing because you find writing itself to be boring. There's nothing wrong with that! You are just searching for inspiration. Perhaps you make a habit of going to the same bar. You should definitely engage the other patrons in a discussion about your literary inspirations and your ideas for novels. Give people book recommendations, people love that sort of attention. And don't forget to follow up about them in a month, it shows that you care.

-You often find yourself having affairs. You see many narratives in the world and don't want to be tied to just one. Come to think of it, it is likely you have felt an urge that is unmet in every relationship I've ever had.

-If when you try to engage with someone you are attracted to at the bar, you often end up being misunderstood. Your mind is occupied with the synthesis of transcendent thought. Theirs most likely isn't, and that is OK!

-You often end up spending the night alone, ignoring calls from your significant other. Writing is a rather solitary activity.

-You often need to, umm, "relieve" yourself of your sexual urges. Again, writing is a rather lonely undertaking and you're probably pretty sensitive to distractions like sexual tension. And you don't allow your significant other to gratify you during these times. Inspiration is too elusive to permit such intrusions.

-You are very selective about the "viewing" materials you use for that last portion. A decent story line, and a plausible coupling. It is important that the male is as attractive as the female.

-You are capable of finding aesthetic beauty in the form and genitalia of the same sex as yourself, even if you are definitely heterosexual (you're a good writer and you know yourself well). You sometimes fill pages of notebooks with lines describing genitalia you are not attracted to, just as a writing exercise.

-If your significant other breaks up with you because you've been "distant" and they think you "need to find yourself". Again, solitary activity. This ALWAYS happens to me. I guess good writers should date other good writers who understand them.

I Have Always Been Here (Part 7 of 7)

On Saturday she is a disembodied floating smile to the children whose interpretations of what genitals mean is still wide open. That being said, the water park is often the venue where people discover their terminal fascination with skin, and the exquisite architecture of the underside of her breasts alone has turned numberless future engineers into day laborers and day laborers into artists and artists into accountants. The regulation lifeguard bathing suits usually wear the employees more than the other way around, but her uniform practically does her grocery shopping. The park is old sometimes and many of the summers have few real water park days, so she finds creative ways to pass her time perched in a chair atop the water slide, which is carved into the natural rocky hills, suspended by metal pipe that has rusted into the color of pine bark. To arrive at the summit slide, one must navigate a trail that is imposed upon what should be an intimidating, jagged ravine, tamed with terraces of logs until they ran out of logs and started using pressure-treated railroad ties. Oh the splinters, the staph infections... The view is obscured by shrubs and boulders, so when she sees someone begin the trek, she slides her finger under her bathing suit and begins counting. By around 50 she reaches her second orgasm and knows to shift her gaze to a clearing and wait to see the children pass. Once she they do, she has at least 45 seconds to squeeze off what she can and adjust her smile. Her record is 8. She does not remember how this habit began, there has never been a time where she did not do this. Each session has grown indistinct apart from the incidences where she has been caught. This has happened 6 times, each by the rationalization that one more is worth the risk, and what's the risk? The kid won't understand anyway! When they arrive, however, and she quickly retrieves her hand and orientation, the reflexive shame is stamped on her flushed porcelain face. She feels guilty, then paranoid that the children will say something, then assurance bordering on self-righteousness that nobody would dare to accuse her of something so awful, but within 20 minutes she is on the edge of her seat, counting.

I Have Always Been Here (Part 1 of 7)

Monday is conceived by drunks around 3:30 AM, when she finishes cleaning the floors and shelves of the store after their parade of blessed jubilance. For reasons of her own, she decides on life. This is when she ritualistically stuffs twelve paper bags with equal amounts of danish, donuts, bagels, and if it was a slow night, a cookie or two for the newspaper couriers, who celebrate the end of their route with a bag of free day-old pastry each. "What are you doing here at this hour?", the gentleman from The Post asks every couple nights. "Are there cars on road?" she replies. "Because as long as there are cars, I am here." "Was that too strange?" She asks herself this when nobody replies. She protects them from Silence, because somebody has to. "Where's Gene and that boy with the Inquirer?" Half of the regulars will be too tired after their shift to stop in, but she prepares a dozen bags anyway. Someone always thinks, "Why does she always fill all those bags, when she knows full well there's never more than six of us here?" When someone has time to think, she waves away the Emptiness, saying something like "I gave you two of the lemon-filled, Bill. I know you just looooove those lemon-filleds..."  She really doesn't really know that, but she is a Guardian now, and Bill was so happy to seem to have a preference that he ate both of them. After the couriers leave, it is one hour and forty-five minutes until the first batch of day laborers passes through on their way pick up the Short Line bus to New York City, and she must be prepared, lest there be another problem. There can be no further incidents of Silence or Emptiness. Seamless transactions only. No more customers can be lost, not even another homeless woman who goes by "Tortoise" and her de facto husband Red Carl. The day laborers set the tone for the day as they drift through to acquire the only breakfast that can maintain a belly that hangs several inches over the waistband on someone who spends all day doing calisthenics with power tools and cinder blocks. "Not all of you can be crane operators", she teases as she fills bags with sugar, fat, and carbs, the guitar, drum, and bass of a mobile diet. The first few Short Line rushes are mostly still in REM sleep, they'll grunt affirmatively at anything she says. Once the consistent crowd starts, so do the personalities and thus the challenges. She gathers ammunition between rushes, studying whatever the radio has to say about the world and writing it down, filing down every sharp edge until everything relates to snack foods, going to work, or dogs, and never cats. When people think of cats they think of cat owners and grow reflective, sympathetic, judgmental. The last time she permitted the unfettered mention of cats, there were three more innocent faces staring back at her in the missing persons poster on the front door who were never anywhere else.

Inevitably a regular will compliment her attire like a child tossing a Freudian cheese fry to a bluebird, unaware of the Freudian pigeons preening themselves behind him. Her daily tolerant smile at one Jimi Hendrix of sexual harassment permits a dozen Billy Squiers, which takes her through most of the morning rush. The Bunn-O-Matic always breaks at around 9:30AM, so she makes coffee in small batches using a maker she brought in from a home she only remembers. The coffee grows more burnt, and apologies grow more necessary as the customer emotional maintenance decreases. That last part is significant, because apologies can actually mean something to people. No apologies at all to frantic people who woke up late or the brittle vacationing families who failed to get that early start, but a distant "sorry" for the numb drunks with finally enough courage to show their face, followed by university students too overwhelmed to take an apology seriously, then finally the homeless, to whom she never apologizes at all because she gives them the coffee for free so they leave before people grow cautiously self-aware.

She is never seen eating, and is accepted as the picture of equanimity. Everybody knows she is never not there, they accept that as well. Some of them hurry because they are glad they are not her but may become her if they linger, others hurry as though if they are fast enough, another less indicting face will greet them when they return for more cigarettes after their shift. Some are outright hostile, hostile the way we are to our mistakes 2 years later, or hostile towards someone who watches bad television, or hostile over their success while they watch her doing the same duties, their years reflected in one daily cycle.

The Assist

Yeah he's still back, slash never really left. ... He commutes to school, (our) mom just... She bought him pants ... I was so upset, like, I told her to return them. 
...

Like, with a degree in that, you need to intern while you get your degree. Otherwise it looks terrible on paper. ... And he wants to work for Facebook? Facebook is like “Go get your experience somewhere else, we don’t want you until you do, we’re not here to train you. (There is a hidden agenda to this level of enthusiasm for his role as the "bearer of tough love".  Is he bitter about the way the world has treated him?  Or is he angry that other people have priorities that he does not understand? I already hate him, is it because of my sympathy for her boyfriend or do I just hate aggressive vain pricks? The latter.)

Speaking of indecision Oh yeah, how is ? I just don't know where it is going And neither does he, and I guess he's taking it out on me?

...

Maybe it’s because I’m hearing it all at once, because we haven’t talked in a while, but it seems like you’ve been bottling this up for months. (Exaggerating her barely audible gripe. This guilt trip serves the following purposes: A) puts her on defensive so she won't notice that her misfortune makes him act slightly jovial. B) Casts him as sexually threatening, as though he can't be around when she is in a relationship or else they'll do something, that there is some palpable sexual tension.)

He's just ...  ... But I still love him ...

This guy just sounds like… a drain on society. Like, this guy is the reason socialist countries can’t work. (Silence. This could be when she shuts herself off to him for his vitriol. Will he take the hint?)

You need someone who is invested so you can take a break every now and then, maybe take some time for creative endeavors. Part of the problem with hipster type guys is there are relatively few of them who are reliable. (Don't you know? Creativity and financial instability is for women. So you should date me, and after we move in and get married I will convince you to take some time off of work for creative endeavors or to find yourself or some other bullshit so you’ll become more dependent on me. From there I will easily convince you that we should have children, and I will own you forever!)

...

I was an idiot, why didn’t I date you? (Likes giving people what they want so they'll leave her alone.)

...
You don’t need to feel guilty because you don’t get to that point unless shit is really fucked up. If you’re upset about this, you are already at the point where you’ve done enough. (I hope the glaringly faulty logic of this sentence overshadows my bias)

I know, but it’s just hard… (I like venting to you, but nothing you are saying makes me feel better)

My goal…

Is to take over my life.

20 Things

Jane: Happy Thanksgiving, 20 Things You Should Learn By Age 30!

20 Things You Should Know By Age 30: You're wishing me "Happy Thanksgiving" at 11:30 at night.  Something must be wrong in your life.

Jane: Oh, 20 Things... You always say that!

20 Things: Am I ever wrong?

Jane: Umm...

20 Things: Just tell me what you want.

Jane: Well, ok.  So I decided to be like, a shut-in for Thanksgiving this year.  It's easy for me because I don't have any family out here... you know how I moved here from Rhode Island, right?

20 Things: Yes, I am in general pleased with people being mobile in their twenties.  Good job!  Just make sure you settle down soon.

Jane: Thank you.  Anyway, I just think that Thanksgiving is just a bunch of bullcrap really.  I'm tired of hearing about what stores are open, who is eating what... it's like the day of the year where every obnoxious trait of American culture is concentrated like whale pee.

20 Things: Whale pee?

Jane: Yeah, whales have the most concentrated urine in the animal kingdom. I learned that from another click-bait article.

20 Things: Whatever. Stop putting energy into being random and clever, it's not cool anymore.  Sonic commercials are random.  Old Spice commercials are random.  Are either of those things cool?  No.  Wait, is that a Sonic ad up there? Shit. I mean... Sonic is actually pretty cool.  You should go there over lunch at work. They have free wifi, so you can edit your resume and cover letters and shoot a few off. Stop spending time at a job you hate.

Jane: Thanks. So I decided to just spend the day alone, reading and doing chores.  I thought it would be fun, but then nobody texted me or wished me a happy Thanksgiving.

20 Things: And now you're bummed.

Jane: Yes.

20 Things: Hmm.  And real friends are supposed to be there for you, unless... maybe your friends are still not at a stable enough point in their lives to know they're supposed to send everyone they care about appropriate holiday greetings. You might have to get over your fears and start doing new things to get some better friends.

Jane: Well, I don't know if I want to go that far, I mean I don't even care about Thanksgiving...

20 Things: Why are you rallying against people having fun?  Look, you're almost 30.  By now you should know that if you harbor negativity, people probably consider you a toxic presence.  You should take this as a sign to improve the way you present yourself to people.  The way people treat you is a good indicator of what kind of life you lead.  You spend too much time having shallow interactions on social media.  Have you even once hand-written a letter to a friend?

Jane: My handwriting is ugly!

20 Things: Stop making excuses and start living your life. That is why Mark gave up on you.

Jane: Mark and I broke up because I told him I wasn't sure if I wanted kids.

20 Things: Mark was tired of waiting for you to make a decision about the direction of your life while you squander your momentum on opinions and anxiety about social issues.  Let me ask you something: what have you done to actually change anything? Posting about it on Facebook doesn't count.

Jane: ...

20 Things: Speechless, just like the rest of your generation when I ask them that.

Jane: I... I'm sorry.

20 Things: There's no need to apologize, you can't be expected to have it all figured out.  It is entirely possible that your life's calling is trying to find out what your life's calling is for the rest of your life.  Besides, Mark didn't like jazz. It would have never worked out.

Jane: Yeah, to hell with Mark! Wait, why was I here?

20 Things: It's more about the journey than the destination...

Jane: That's right, Thanksgiving. Fuck Thanksgiving. At least I'm not gonna get fat.

20 Things: You should learn to be OK with your body.

Jane: But look at that girl in yoga pants on the beach right there...

20 Things: Don't be angry with her just because her metabolism is faster than yours.

Jane: I could have a body like that if I didn't work so much.

20 Things: Stop using "busy" as an excuse and start taking proactive steps towards figuring your life out.  Do you even have a mentor?

Jane: A mentor?  I don't... how do I get a mentor?

20 Things: Just find someone you admire and write to them, ask for advice.  They'll probably ignore you, so write to them again. You have to be assertive and aggressive if you want to get anywhere.

Jane: That sounds awkward, I don't want to bother people and I don't want a mentor. I don't admire anybody in a way that would make me want them as a mentor.

20 Things: The truth doesn't change in accordance with your ability to stomach it. I could produce a list of successful people who all had mentors if you like.

Jane: Well OK, but is there a less creepy version of that where I don't have to basically stalk people and face constant awkward rejections?

20 Things: Approach everyone with the humble assumption that you can learn something from them.

Jane: That's much better.  I'm gonna make myself a ham sandwich and go to bed.

20 Things: You should learn to take care of yourself and form good habits now.

Jane: I'll wake up really early and do hot yoga.

20 Things: OK. I'll whisper the names of remarkable people and what time they wake up in the morning.

Book Deal

That was possibly the craziest summer of my life, man.  I kept a journal of it all so I wouldn't forget, I'm thinking of pitching it to a publisher...

(Secretary walks into Chief Editor's office)

Secretary: Sir? It's Ryan Mayberry, your 11 o'clock.

Chief Editor: Excellent, send him in.

(Ryan enters, they shake hands.)

Cheif Editor: Ryan Mayberry?  Mitchell Stellcraft, chief editor at Major Publishing Company, have a seat.

Ryan: Mr. Stellcraft, thank you for taking the time to speak to me today on such short notice.

Mitchell: My pleasure Ryan, I just happened to have this little spot open up last minute.  I'd like to say I read your manuscript, but I'm a busy man.  Tell me why you're here.

Ryan: So I kept a journal when I was doing some contract work for the military in the Czech Republic a few years ago-

Mitchell: Very nice, good military reporting always does well. What were you guys doing in the Czech Republic?

Ryan: I'm not sure I remember, because I just got wasted the whole time!

Mitchell: I'm confused... please elaborate.

Ryan: Let me explain.  I was there going out with other soldiers every night just getting shitfaced!  The bars there are sick, and the women are even sicker.  Czech girls are not used to guys buying drinks for them, European men don't do that.  Plus, they have a romanticized view of America, and they've always wondered what it would be like to have an American man treat them right, you know?  I was always out with the same three guys, and they all had their thing they did at the end of the night.  Andy was always in a corner puking all over the place and apologizing to the bar staff.  Rob was always trying to start a fight with someone, and Rich was always with like two freaky girls ready to get freaky.  This chick I was sorta seeing, we kept turning on Midnight in Paris when we got in, but we were so wasted we kept falling asleep so I only saw like three-fourths of it.  But I was thinking, my book could be like that.  I could totally be like Owen Wilson, and my friend Rob could be Hemmingway... and Richie could be Shakespeare cause he's so smooth with the ladies, y'know? Andy is so Hunter S. Thompson, he even got us coke one night and-

Mitchell: Ok now, hold on a minute... you guys did cocaine?  That's awesome!

Ryan: I know!  We did it all weekend...

Mitchell: And you wrote about it?

Ryan: It's all in my diary.  I banged like, 3 Polish girls that week.  I have a few deep observations about the difference between Polish girls and Czech girls from that part, but I don't wanna give too much away.

Mitchell: I don't want to reveal too much, but Ryan: this is the sort of  material we've been looking for.  Regular Americans we can all relate to doing just crazy things in foreign countries.

Ryan: I have this one friend who is a DJ at this club. He spins at the Chrome Rose tonight.  We should go chill and talk things over.

Mitchell: Woah, you know a DJ?

Ryan: Totally, I go there every week and buy him a drink, we're real close.

Mitchel: That's remarkable!  Let's meet at 7:30. Oh, and I can totally expense it.

Ryan: Wait, what!?

Mitchell: Totally. After all, I'll be having lunch with an author.

(They laugh and shake hands)

Apology for 2005

This is the script to a monologue I performed at a solo performance show at Space 55 in Phoenix.  The text in bold was featured on a large cue card.  The livejournal entry referred to can be found here.  I changed some of the wording to make the content A) Fit on a cue card and B) Have more impact.  None of the changes change the meaning or were in any way at odds with how I felt at the time.  The italicized text is a fictional phone conversation with my dad during the show.  I had three phone alarms set so it would ring like crazy during the show so I could occasionally duck out of the monologue to have a conversation.  I forget exactly when I made the interruptions, the placement below is an estimate.

Apology for 2005

I think that maturity is measured by the number of years between now and the most recent time you could look back at yourself and say, “What the hell was wrong with me back then?”  The more years, the more mature you are.  By “you”, I mean me.  I’m trying to make it sound universal so this all seems less narcissistic, but that’s kinda silly, this is a solo performance show after all.  I call this piece “Apologizing for 2005”.  2005 was the peak of my Oscar Wilde phase, except instead of master and redefine multiple genres and forms of literature, I drank expensive booze and tried to come up with witty things to say on livejournal.  2005 can be summed up with my first entry: “Subject: I suck the milk from the teats of broken dreams after filling my mouth with the chocolate syrup of cynicism.  Current mood: Slotch. (it was supposed to say "scotch", it was an intentional typo, for affect).  Today I alphabetized all of my vintage designer ties by country of origin. They’re all American, so I just left them all over the floor.”  Any mundane personal detail or embarrassing temporary opinion I could express in a strained clever phrase wound up in my livejournal.  I will focus my apology on one particular post.  It was a post about a woman I briefly dated.  I had decided I no longer want to be involved with her, and like a gentleman, instead of personally discussing this with her, I figured I would just spare her the awkward conversation and ignore all of her calls and texts.  Since I never told her about my livejournal and I wanted to feel good about what I did, I decided to publicly post a list of things I hated about her.   Unfortunately, she googled me and found my callous, enumerated buzzfeed-style list of all her shortcomings.  Her response was drunk and pretentious enough for me to not consider how hurtful and unfair what I said was, and how I misrepresented her to make myself seem like not an asshole.  I never forgave myself for this, so tonight I am going to reveal the most shameful parts of the list and call 2005 Me out on his bullshit.  So, “Things I didn’t like about Julia in 2005.”  I should note that I was living in New Jersey at the time, while she lived in Philadelphia.

Cocaine addiction. Ah, cocaine. A good first item, this will get everyone on your side by associating her with the drug of choice for greedy record execs and trust fund hipsters.  Everybody hates an obnoxious coke head, and you’ll seem like a martyr for putting up with her for as long as you did.  So sure, exploit her detrimental habit to make yourself look like a hero.

(Phone rings, and has been ringing and I keep ignoring until now) 

Oh jeez. Sorry everyone, I'm in the middle of buying a new car, and my dad is insisting on helping me with my search and giving me advice. 

(Answer phone) 

Hi.  Yeah make it quick, I’m in the middle of something. (pause) No.  (pause) No, I don’t want to buy another American car, I’m tired of being on a first name basis with the staff at Pep Boys. The head mechanic just invited me to his son’s christening. (pause) I wanna buy a Toyota Prius. (pause)  I know you don’t, but I’m the one buying the car. (pause)  It’s not just about the gas mileage, it’s about the environment. (pause) If you wanna help me, that’s what I want. Gotta go.

Made me sit through her fake concern for the victims of Hurricane Katrina.  Oh, let me guess: you’re one of those people who thinks everyone only pretends to care about human suffering to make themselves seem cool.  I bet you also think that all news sources are biased by corporate funding, not because you have done any research, but if all news is fake and nobody really cares, then you are absolved of personal responsibility so you can keep drinking and ignoring the human condition. 

Occasional mustache. Clearly you must see this as telling the hard truths nobody wants to hear, and if you offend someone it is their fault because reality doesn’t care about feelings. You are wielding the mighty sword of truth. You are the “Like it is” express, running over anyone with an artificially high opinion of themselves.  I’m sure you don’t see this as shaming someone for not conforming to what society thinks they ought to maintain their upper lip.

(Phone rings again)

Hey. (pause) Actually I read a few articles since our last conversation, and apparently hybrids are worse for the environment when you factor in the inefficient production.  (pause)  I know you just went through all that effort, and I appreciate it, but did you know that the metals used in the batter y cells are rare Earth metals that require these complicated mining operations in third world countries? (pause)  No, that doesn’t mean I want another Ford Focus. Just because I don’t want a hybrid doesn’t mean we’re back to square one.  Maybe a Toyota Corolla? (pause) Yeah, do that.  Thanks. Thanks.

Shows no interest in reciprocating sexual acts, bar tabs, and heaven forbid she meet me in New Jersey for once.  What you didn’t say was that you were really just using her because she was showing you cool spots in Philly.  You were not interested in her reciprocating sexual acts because you didn’t actually find her attractive and let’s face it: by the time you got back to her place you were too drunk to get it up anyway.  You didn’t want her to pay bar tabs because it gave you perverse joy to continue to spoil her the way her parents have.  Her being spoiled helped keep your personal guilt at bay.  And you didn’t want her to come to New Jersey because then you wouldn’t be going to underground Philly drum and bass nights and warehouse parties.

Loose vagina. Seriously, how many guys did she let rail her out in her college slut phase? OK 2005 Ian, in the future, there are these things called “memes”, and they will educate you on basic female anatomy and slut shaming.

Spoiled trust fund hipster.  So she used to make you share ear buds with her and listen to The Postal Service and Basement Jaxx in faux dive bars. Why the hell was that such a big deal? You placed a disproportionately large amount of loathing on this specific behavior, which you saw as selling out and being the cliché hipster couple you secretly wanted to be.  So by all means, keep running away from yourself, see where you end up. (Under breath) Phoenix

(Phone rings again)

Talk to me. (pause) Wait, why are you looking at more hybrids? (pause) You think mining could be a valuable source of industry in places that need it most?  How have you managed to make electric cars evil?  (pause)  No, they’re not gonna mine in an environmentally sustainable way, that doesn’t make sense! (pause) No, don’t invest your stock in Lithium, invest it in Oxygen! Oxygen isn’t traded on the stock market, it is traded between humans and nature. I was being- (pause)  Whatever, I don’t need your advice, I’ll just read consumer reviews. Yeah bye.“

Said I was rude to her friend, but her friend is a coke head who sleeps with morons.  Hey, remember that time you got to dictate to women who they can sleep with?  No? Because it never fuckin’ happened!

The moral of the story: don't date me unless you want me to tell people on the internet how much you suck.  Whew, glad you acknowledged that what you’re doing is wrong otherwise this post would make you look like a jerk. Because everything is OK, as long as there’s an ironic self-referential kicker.

My journal points to a person whose privilege has insulated him from reality and deluded his grasp of cause and effect.  In 2005, I was a terrible argument against the belief that my generation is lazy and entitled.  Fortunately, reality beat me up until I became everything I ridiculed in my early twenties.  Most people rebel against their parents, but spend their lives finding little excuses to become more like them, but not me.  I invent my own set of undesirable traits that I will gradually grow to embody.  Until you stop coming up with reasons to despise people, you are doomed to end up becoming them.  Did I say “you” again? I meant me.

Bonus - alternate ending I did not use:

God, I hate that ending, it comes off too poppy, like I tacked it on to make it work as a solo piece with a meaningful conclusion.  It's a good thing I said I didn't like the ending, then performed it anyway. Otherwise, this monologue would make me look like someone who slings around wise-sounding nonsense meant to sound deep and make you think just long enough for me to escape and start writing my next monologue.