A Twixter's Lament     By Ryan Notch Man, I don't want to say my life is boring, because it's not.  My day job consists of lots of minor emergencies with assholes constantly bothering me and a lack of information that keeps me in a state of near panic.  I mean, it completely sucks, but it's not boring.  When I get home I struggle to divide my time between making a movie, writing, playing poker, friends, and family while still somehow hoping to have enough time left in the day to indulge in one of the many awesome video games, TV shows, movies, and books that people are constantly creating for me to enjoy and be enriched by.  No, I am never ever sitting around with nothing to do. And yet I DO want to say my life is boring, because somehow I still feel like it is.  I mean here I am in my apartment, Sunday night after a weekend of rushing around, and I feel a complete wrongness to it. I hear all these cars out my window constantly, all night long and I think "Wow!  Where are you going?  Is it somewhere exciting?  Can I come too?" My friends and I used to do something exciting every night, even if it was just trespassing in a park somewhere, but eventually we all gave it up and moved onto "bigger and better and more mature things."  We thought life held all this excitement, so we went off on our own separate ways in search of our private cities of gold. We thought that we would go out and find careers that were exciting and challenging and fun and we would grow as people and live happy lives. Only, what did we get?  I ship parts for a living. One friend delivers pizza, another works as an office assistant, another serves coffee; one even works for his mom.  These are the smartest, most creative people I've ever met in a lifetime of hanging out with exceptional people, and they're working in meaningless jobs for what? At the very least we should be working together at a meaningless job; at least we'd have some fun that way.  At least I'd have some backup when the asshole at work yells at me for not having the right part in stock, a comrade to watch my back. What if when Scarecrow and Dorothy and Tin Man met they all realized they were looking for different things and went their separate ways? They would have been killed by those fucking flying monkeys, that's what!  And yet that's exactly what we've done. Even if we knew the way to Oz, maybe it's too late because we've all ended up drugged and asleep in a poppy field somewhere, afraid to go out for fear of being tired at work tomorrow.  That's why as I sit here in this apartment I keep thinking, "I want to go brake into an abandoned building and play flashlight hide and seek" or "I want to find an open sewer tunnel and map out the area in case I ever need to escape from a police chase" or "I want to drive down to an art studio somewhere with a bunch of other artists and work on a stop motion animation while another guy works on his guitar solo and another paints on a canvas and another is working on a typewriter" or even "I want to go fight crime." I wouldn't even need super powers.  Just give me a cool costume and a few partners and point me towards the emergency. Just tell me where my important and exciting life is and I swear I'll go.  Ryan Notch is a filmmaker and writer (these aren't things he makes money off of, but he'd prefer to be identified this way rather then as a call center technician). His first feature length B horror-movie entitled "NightThings" is due out sometime in 2008. You can find his production company at lastnightofapril.com and his generally angry and offensive blogs at myspace.com/mr.nerd. (which he swears is a legitimate place for intelligent conversation and not just a site to pick up inappropriately young women). Ryan is addicted to poker, despite the looks he gets from family and friends when he tries to explain to them that it is a perfectly viable substitute for an IRA. Ryan is not used to talking about himself in the third person.