iceland bound

so two weeks ago, after staring at an orbitz.com screen for a couple of hours i bought plane tickets for a ten day trip to iceland. i'm going solo. doing the hostel thing, which i've never done and have always wanted to do. the first question out of everyone's mouth is "why iceland." the reasons all come off a bit metaphysical and/or dorky, so i give pause when telling people. it only makes sense then, that i just suck it up and tell the world. here goes:

why iceland?

a. north tends to be the direction i head to get my head clear (i grew up in boston and would always head to the coast of maine for vacation, camping, etc.). north is clean. cold. it has wisdom to it. weight.

b. the atlantic carries with it the same symbolism and weight as the direction north. i like to throw my biggest questions to the sea. i've always done that. hopefully i'll never stop.

c. from what i've seen so far, the landscape in iceland looks like the perfect place to head. i'm a fan of raw/harsh/wide/beautiful landscapes so it made the decision easy.

d. i hear the people there are friggin' awesome.

e. since it's my first solo backpack trip, i figured i'd get my wings in one of the safest countries in the world. how safe is iceland? mothers of infants leave them in thier strollers outside when they go shopping. try that anywhere else.

f. when i was in school i always wanted to go to new zealand. but the more i've learned about iceland over the past few years the more it offers more of what i'm looking for. i like that they speak icelandic and not english as a primary language (even though they all speak english anyway) it gives me the chance to spend the next couple of weeks learning one of the oldest spoken languages in the world. besides, but the atlantic is my ocean. and at this point in my life i'd like to keep it around for this trip. there are enough changes going on.

g. the country is literally cut in half by the mid ocean ridge which means it is still in the process of becoming. terra nova. enter my penchant for metaphor and symbolism.

i hope to use this site to share some experiences. before, during and after.

in the meantime, if you're considering backpacking student-style anytime soon, then i heavily recommend travelpunk there are lots of great articles and even more cool people there willing to hook you up with information.

so what happened?

so i somehow made it almost two years without posting anything. there have been a few folks that have emailed me over that period wondering how things turned out, so here goes:

it really couldn't have gone better. after leaving forrester back in 2004 i spent the summer getting my portfolio together and meeting with folks at the ad shops around boston and providence. i wound up landing a job as a copywriter at nail ( www.nail.cc -- new website coming soon, so hold off on looking). at the time it was my top pick not only for proximity (living in providence it was only ten minutes walk from my apartment) but because they had done some great work, landed a lot of awards (advertising world masturbation) and some of the folks i talked to at bigger firms told me that they were a cool little company that thought big. i was one of the extremely lucky few that the whole ad job hunt worked out for and i'm grateful.

i've been there since sept of 04 and actually like going to work every day. it's small enough that i get to work on everything (print, radio, web, even the occasional tv--ok, once), and the recognition that some of the campaigns have gotten is seriously helping my google-ability versus that other collin sheehan, who apparently is some gifted jock in new jersey. the bastard.

so people, that's the story. thanks for asking.

~c

Sorry I haven't been posting lately. It has been a busy couple of weeks. I quit my job last monday. For those of you who are interested or just curious, and in an effort to preemptively answer any of the big question marks in your head, I have supplied a generic Q&A session. This is taken directly from a mass friends & family email that I blasted out this morning.



Q: So, what's up? Why is Friday your last day at Forrester?

A: I gave my official two weeks notice on last Monday, so Friday is when my two weeks were up. I hadn’t considered the national holiday on Monday, which actually shortened my 2 weeks by a day, but hey, no one’s called me out on it yet.



Q: No, I mean, like, why did you quit? Having a job is good. Quitting one is irresponsible.

A: After college, when I had my "hey, I need health insurance" realization after dangling from a 40 ft. ladder while painting the house in Chelmsford—I gave myself four years to accomplish 4 goals. These were, in order of importance: 1. Get health insurance. 2. Get a vehicle that works (you may remember the VW Fox that had leprosy). 3. Pay off $10K in credit card debt. 4. Go to Europe.

As many of you know, because I was able to catch the last push before the tech bubble burst, I lucked out with a great job and did well in it, actually accomplishing these goals in half the time. So the following two years were left for me to think about what I wanted to do and hope to get laid off so I would qualify for severance and unemployment benefits.



Q: What happened to just hoping to get laid off?

A: After waiting for a few years for that to happen, I realized it was an altogether bad strategy. It doesn’t do much for one’s self esteem or anxiety levels. Not to mention the ethical implications of half-assing a job that you hate to go to every day.

I couldn’t let the pittance that I would get from the Commonwealth be what kept me here another three years hating every day. I wasn’t even appreciating the money I made since it was, for all intents and purposes, a payoff to myself to keep me from going after something that I loved to do.



Q: OK, sport-o, so what is that thing that you love to do this time? You know you have a short attention span, so how do you know this is it?

A: Yes indeed, I do tend to jump from interest to interest, from identity to identity, but I have always maintained a core that has changed very little. So, I decided to pursue something that catered to that core, this includes; the overall quirkiness, the twisted sense of humor, the general mastery of useless trivia, the short attention span, the geek who could watch a documentary on just about anything, the love/hate relationship with pop culture, and the love of writing and creating.

The answer that I have found after three years of serious thought and taking various courses, reading books, and interviewing people in the field is to join an ad agency on the creative side as a Copywriter. This is what I will be pursuing full time from here on out.



Q: So, you want to write the words on ads, doesn’t that sound boring?

A: Every ad you see has a team of two or more people. One is the Copywriter, the other is the Art Director. At the end of the day, the Copywriter is responsible for the words and the Art Director responsible for the look of an ad, but both come up with the ideas. So, yes, simply writing the words on an ad would sound boring, but fortunately that isn’t at all that a Copywriter would do. Writing about a toilet seat is lame, coming up with an ad that convinces you that a certain toilet seat is better then another, that is art.



Q: I hear the industry is tough to get in to and even harder when you get in. It is a dog-eat-dog business, and you want to go IN to it?

A: Yes, and I am not fooling myself with a rosy impression of how Advertising is. It is hard. But so are a lot of things, and hey you know what’s even harder? Try not racking yourself with regret for not going after something that every part of your intellect and instinct tell you to.

This would also be a good time to ask for anyone reading this that has any contacts at an Ad agency in the greater Boston area to come forward. Please let me know if there is anyone you would like to put me in touch with.



Q: OK, it sounds like you, but how are you so sure this is the right career for the rest of your life?

A: Nothing is for sure or forever. People change, circumstances change. Ask me again in four years.



Q: What about your creative nonfiction writing? We always kind of hoped you would pursue that more.

A: Well, I have been doing a lot of writing lately, and have recently started sending things out for the first time since my piece got produced on National Public Radio. For any of you who missed me in the Boston Sunday Globe Magazine the other week, I did get published in the “Tales From the City Section.” Nothing dramatic, but it was technically my first byline.

I have produced a ton of work, and will continue doing so, as I always have. Hopefully this time with less job related self-loathing clouding my view.



Q: You had a pretty good gig going, working 2 days from home and all, and you weren’t that busy, why couldn’t you look for a job while you were at Forrester?

A: I had considered that, and even told myself that for years, but for a number of reasons haven’t done a very good job at it. I know myself enough to understand that the only way for me to do it and to do it right is to go at it full time, with the lack of paycheck as added incentive.


Q: So, what are you going to do for money?

A: I plan to practice raising milk-fed veal and Kobe beef at a Pleasant View Ranch in the Berkshires. Just kidding. I have some money saved up, have been doing the numbers on my cash burn-rate every six months (courtesy of the semi-annual Forrester layoff cycle), so I know to the best of my ability what I am getting in to.

But, hey, ask me again in four months and I might be chirping a different tune as I am folding shirts at the gap with a solemn expression on my face. If you want to talk about the effects of this on my long term earnings potential, then I will be more personally vested and interested. I have never felt that in a job before. If I can do OK doing something I despise, then imagine what I can do with something that I like?



Q: Aren’t you worried?

A: If concern is healthy, then I am very healthy right now. What is kind of amazing however, is that the chest pains, heart flutters, anxiety attacks, and migraines that had become part of my daily existence have miraculously disappeared since the moment that I gave my notice. I always knew being here was taking a toll, but I didn’t realize the extent of the anxiety it was responsible for.



Q: Well, Collin, you seem to be OK. Are you really feeling good, or just trying to make us feel better?

A: Probably a little bit of both. I certainly appreciate your healthy concern. But those of you know me well enough will sleep better knowing that I am doing the right thing, wherever it takes me.

I have a lot of great things going for me in my life, and it is hard to truly appreciate those things when you hate what you do most of your day. I know that this feeling isn’t exclusive to me, I know that there is something very mid-twenties post-ironic era about it, but hey, that’s me. I just wasn’t built for this, and after five years of it—I think I have given it a fair enough shake.

Thank you to everyone who I have told so far for your great support and encouragement. It means a lot to me while I step out from this cubicle.


~C

gratifying squish

from: journal entry 4/14/04

it is a monday morning after a long winter, 7:50 am. i’m on the red line, heading outbound towards cambridge. towards the front of the car there is a pool of coffee with cream, partially absorbed by a discarded metro that is slowly seeping across the marbleized grey linoleum floor. it’s a menacing mass of animate liquid, about three feet across, growing larger and more out of control with every bump and sway of the train. there is a suspicious froth at the edge in some areas – a reaction with whatever godforsaken substance winds up on a floor of a subway car.

the train is so crowded between south station and downtown crossing that it is impossible to avoid it. the odd jolt produces tentacles that strike passengers who mistakenly thought they were strictly spectators. those of us closer to it are looking down with nervous anticipation and fear. i am trying to stand on the outside edges of my feet, without really understanding what good that will do. others in more expensive shoes are trying to get on their tip toes, which, as evident by the strain on their faces and their failing ankles, is the first time they have tried to do so in a few decades.

enough people filter out at downtown crossing that i am able to escape, taking a seat far enough away to observe other’s clumsy attempts at avoiding the spill as it expands and attacks. i am mortified, realizing that only moments before i was guilty of the same irrational fear and ridiculous gesture. i had promised myself when i started doing this commute that i wouldn’t be one of those uptight, heads-down, cattle-people that i took such pleasure in scoffing at only months before. now we were no different.

the doors open at park. on walks a college-aged asian girl in flip flops and hip hugging jeans – the excess fabric of which is dragging precariously on the floor. those close to the situation look at her exposed feet and dragging jeans as if she were the guy in hitchcock’s “the birds” who was lighting a cigarette over a pool of leaking gasoline. she catches herself in time, freezing in front of it and staring, petrified. her unexpected stop causes a temporary back up of commuters colliding into each other – all confused, all dancing around the pool, loosing their balance and risking injury every time the train accelerates.

as the crowd further thins, it parts around a man, mid-twenties and well dressed; with the tell-tale white earbuds of an ipod stemming from his ear. he is planted defiantly in the thickest area of the spill, glaring down at it while playing subtle air guitar. as we lurch over the longfellow, i stare out the window at various crew teams – performing their early morning warm-up under a promising spring sky. their wake leaves a shimmering herringbone pattern across an otherwise placid charles. somewhere between this guy and the river, i feel, for the first time in my life and with great confidence, that the secret to life is in the appreciation and enjoyment of it while it sloshes beneath your feet, or passes outside your window. as i get off at dendall i make a point of stepping on the coffee-soaked metro – it lets out a gratifying squish as i continue out the doors.

5 Names of Things That I Always Thought There Should Be a Name For

This all started with squelcherflange, which my fiancé still won't let me say in her presence, as she has an easy-to-trigger gag reflex. Please feel free to use these whenever possible; many of these wouldn't come up frequently, but both gipe and squm should be part of your daily vernacular...

Squelcherflange

n. Entrails, used only when protruding out the rectum of roadkill.

“My god, did you see the size of the squelcherflange on that raccoon?.” -- anon

Gipe

n. Any unidentifiable substance, deposit, or residue that is a place is shouldn’t be.

“Hold on a sec, you’ve got some gipe in the corner of your mouth.” -- anon

Squm

n. the result of accumulating sweat between your legs – or any other place that there are long durations of skin on skin contact. See also: swaint, swass.

“Remember to Gold Bond whenever possible, nobody likes the smell of squm.” -- anon

Twink {additional definition}

n. A politically correct artist’s rendering of the genitalia of a young boy, similar in shape to half of a miniature Twinkie.

See: Maurice Sendak’s Mickey in the Night Kitchen, or Family Guy episode where Stewie addresses the UN naked.

Hackulty

n. A teacher or instructor who is either; working well after they have stopped caring, or, never good at what they do in the first place.

ice creams and misdemeanors

yesterday i ate astronaut ice cream for the first time in about fifteen years. it was exactly as i remembered it. granted the only thing that makes it cool is that the astronauts ate it, and it doesn't taste like shit, which is more than i can say for tang, which is closer to the filling for a fun dip pouch than it is to o.j.

this morning i spent two hours in the providence municipal court to contest a $100 dollar parking ticket that i got in january. it had since tripled to $300 and therefore worth my time to show up. when i used to watch people's court i always thought that what i was watching was complete bullshit, but rest assured that this is the one program on television that does a fair job in representing the other side of america, the side that would surface if you were ever to do a core sample of the public at, say, a food court in a large mall. not to mention this is providence, which makes everything more interesting. you would think that this state was founded by religious and social outcasts from other states.....oh wait!

there are times in my life where is become hyper-aware of just how grateful i am to have the good fortune of my education and background. you would think that most people would know to address a judge as your honor, or to speak up, or to maybe wear more than a wife beater and baggie pants to a court appearance. my favorite part of the morning was when there was a teenager, again, with pants around his ankles and a wife beater, who was joining us that morning as a result of three counts. the first was eluding a police officer, the second was disorderly conduct, the third was resisting arrest, here is my best attempt at the actual conversation flow:

judge: this is ridiculous. you almost hit someone with a car and you get disorderly conduct? it should be attempted manslaughter, what do you have to say to yourself?

kid: well, you see, i was running away from the police for a really good reason...(pause)

judge: be careful what you say next!

kid: ummm, well, you see there is a really good reason. the officer was hostile...

judge: oh, and i am sure that he was really calmed down when you ran away from him.

kid: (silence)

the kind of sad part of this was that he plead guilty, she threw him a bone and gave him a reduced fine. when he walked away, he stopped, turned around, and nervously leaned over the microphone.

kid: "ma'am, is this a felony."

judge: "no son, it's not a felony. you'll be ok."

that, i admit was kind of heartbreaking. but it was reassuring to see that beyond her playful and sarcastic wit, that she actually cared.

i felt a little over prepared with my brooks brothers shirt, notebook, and pictures of the “tow zone” that didn’t have a sign. my entire hearing lasted about ten seconds and i was on my way. she wouldn’t even let me finish my sentence. i felt like a geek, i felt lucky, i felt out of place, i felt grateful for that.

That's what happens when you go from infant to teenager in three seasons...

child stars grow up too fast.....no, really. brian bonsall, who played the lesser-known andrew keaton on “family ties” apparently drank a half pint of jim beam and then drove around the streets of suburban boulder with a friend of his, occasionally stopping so his friend could puke out the window. when asked how much he drank, he told the officer "plenty." creativity on and off the set. beautiful.

i know that child stars can have it tough, and it must be even more painful for child characters that are the physical manifestations of writers running out of things to do with available cast members. he was the write-in kid. the writers milked mama keaton’s pregnancy for all it was worth, then had andrew grow from infant to an articulate button-faced six year old in one season. it must be tough when everyone associates your character with the beginning of the end of an otherwise successful sitcom. other examples: sam mckinney, the redhead freckle-faced whitey on diff’rent strokes, and chrissy seaver on growing pains, the mini pre-benet-ramsey who also had the same growth issues that andrew keaton had.

there are, however some other forms of tv kid syndromes that could be comparable, if not worse than the write-in kid:

….to grow ugly in front of america. that poor ben from growing pains. what an eyesore. he got so ugly and awkward you know the writers had to have talked about killing him off, potentially in a social message episode on heroin, or drunk driving or something. i recall that the cocaine episode left a little to be desired.

….becoming really, really, flaming gay in front of america, like jonathan bower in “who’s the boss?” who was so clearly gay by ten years old that most of america knew before he did. it started with that aquanet cowlick and ended in a lisp so thick that even the best Hollywood speech coach would run the other way. all those years so close to alyssa milano...what a waste.

….diff’rent strokes syndrome. guns, anorexia, heroin, prison, etc. the list goes on. no further explanation needed.

i would like to personally thank each one of them for living such miserable post-tv lives as to squander any jealousy that i may have had of any child star back when i was watching them.

**props to mcgoldrick for his suggested addtions to this article: olivia on the cosby show (when rudi started growing a moustache) and oliver on the brady's. not technically the baby addition, same concept**

Link to story: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=796&e=2&u=/eo/20040603/en_celeb_eo/14235

ok, so you're hung like a horse -- then what?

the increasing creativity of spammers never ceases to amaze me. In order to highlight some of their achievements, i thought i would share some of their names and subject lines from my yahoo account:

H*unglikeahorse writes, “collinsheehan, throw it to her from the next room!!”
SoBigItDrags writes, “when you are THIS BIG, they call you TRIPOD”

while these are clever, they are really pushing a form of inconvenience to me. of all the sexual fantasies i’ve had, and we are talking about a considerable amount here, having a tremendous, cumbersome cock has never been one of them. maybe it is the irish in me. i don’t see why one would want to actually tote that around. i mean, it is nothing that a roll of duct tape and some kevlar webbing couldn’t control, but why?

are some men under the impression that women would really dig a guy that would bend her over a chair, then walk twenty paces, turn, and “throw it to her?” any sex where you would need a baby monitor to listen for the auditory cues of your partner sounds like a drag, and, speaking of dragging – the idea of getting carpet burn on my johnson is equally unappealing. tripod though, now that might just be something that comes in handy, say, if you broke your ankle, or as a party gag to see who could lean the furthest. now you’re talking…

leaving trees and keeping cones

there was a set of about a dozen scotch pine trees on my walk to work that hid a really ugly parking lot. they had huge needles. i would run my fingers through them on the way to and from work frequently. i would occasionally rip one off and inspect it, appreciating its smell, its texture, and its blue tint. the were relatively short, about 15 feet tall and always looked very primitive to me with their six-inch needles and inconsistent canopy. i would look at them and think of dinosaurs, or at least the renditions of their habitat that i would see in books as a kid. i have collected pinecones from them for the past couple of years, amassing about twenty or thirty that are sitting in a plastic bag in my office. i would have gotten more, but i am pretty picky when it comes to cones.

i am talking about them in the past tense because they are no longer there. just last thursday i showed up to work with sap on my hands from having pulled off one of the needles. this morning when i walked to work they were nothing but stumps. all that is there is a parking lot and a rusting, partially folded, six-foot chain link fence that was exposed by their absence.

sometimes you just never know the last time you are going to see something. i am trying to figure out if it would have been better or worse to have been told in advance that they would become acquainted with a wood-chipper over the weekend. would that have improved the quality of my last interaction with them? same thing goes for people. think about all of the people that you have never said goodbye to, knowing that you would never see them again. the most common form of this must be towards the last few days of high school and college. we all walked by each other those last few days of school and courteously acknowledged each other. in some cases we would stop and chat, in others we would walk by looking hurried so we wouldn’t have to.

life is an endless tide of changing sets and characters. it seems that you are saying goodbye infinitely more then you are welcoming the new. it comes with age. during our youths we amass a community of friends quickly and with ease. as the years follow, and your crowd thins, faces change, people gain weight, get married, have babies, and die. eventually you have are surrounded by a tight circle of carefully chosen (by yourself, by circumstance, by genetics, by fortune, and misfortune). this is not to say that those off in the wings or out of the production are any less relevant.

there is a phobia that some people have of throwing anything out. They are discovered in apartments in cities that are piled high with newspapers, dead pets, trash, busted furniture, and broken records. this is an extreme, but the idea here is relevant -- that almost everything, place, and person in life has a time that is appropriate, a time of service, a time of relevance, a time to experience and a time to be released.

if we fully acknowledged every time we part with something then our lives would be spent in a paralyzing state of loss, fear of loss, and lamentation. instead, we should just be happy that we took note of something it in the first place – and enjoy that which we reap; be it experiences, memories, orgasms, scars, children, letters, or a sense of completion. at the very least, when i go home tonight -- i’ll still have the pinecones.