A few days later, once I got over the crippling disappointment that Brandon was married, I went and read his website. (Yes, I met Brandon before I read anything he had ever written, which is unorthodox, I know, but that is just how I roll.) And I could mention how great he is at it, how he sometimes bruises the backs of my eyes with the things he writes, but I'm still mad at him for quitting and taking up one-night-standing all over the internet and otherwise leaving me with only his archives for general inspiration.
Anyway, I don't know about you guys, but I am awfully goddamned tired of me lately, so here is my very first guest post. He always says what I have to say better than I do, anyway. That bastard.
i find it disconcerting, this shaking of the ground beneath me, only to turn on the news and find no reports of seismic activity in the area. these isolated, man-made or tremors otherwise imagined and isolated. i walked on shifting soils through the field behind my house today. perhaps it was the memory of an imaginary picnic with my parents, down along the river banks. my father took me swimming. my mother set out a blanket with Fun Dip and Tab. it sounds nice, but i don't know. we never did anything like that. when the child psychologist told me i dream in black and white, she must not have been referring to the colors.
just because i'm reeling doesn't mean i feel pain, because i don't. or that i'm willing to take the short cut, because i'd just as soon take the long way around and stretch this out as much as possible. that's so pretty, all these misunderstandings. 'you just go on now and take your time,' i tell myself. 'there is too such a thing as a long cut. and a reason for it.'
i didn't want to wake up holding my own sides today, spikes dropped into an otherwise sinus rhythm. but i don't know how else to recognize the little changes. i see, i see, i see. but it's mostly the sides of this rut i'm in. and occasionally i am helped out, invariably dragged into a new rut. but i'll be goddamned if a good old fashioned rut doesn't make me want to do nothing but write and write and write, until i become so goddamned insufferable that the only way out of the rut is to close my eyes and make my way into a deeper rut, where the sun has a more difficult time finding its way to my light-sensitive temples, and i'll be goddamned if i don't like this next rut even better. and in case you think i'm misusing the word 'rut,' i just looked it up, and it means 'sexual arousal among large animals,' so, whatever.
but writing when you're rutting is a growling dog asleep on your favorite pair of shoes. you love your dog, but she snaps when she's tired, she can't help but. you go to work in different shoes, and think, i really like that old dog. i'm going to miss her. and those new shoes are just a long list of arguments, times you remember thinking you were right and misunderstood, and you appear to have found some answers at the bottom of your rut. you come out swinging, and she parries with 'i feel alone.' and you say, 'well, you're wrong, because i'm holding you as tightly as i possibly can.' and she says, 'i feel alone, even when you hold me.' and you say, 'WELL OBVIOUSLY I'M NOT DOING IT RIGHT. YOU'RE BLAMING THE SENTIMENT WHEN IT'S THE TECHNIQUE AT FAULT. SEE? WRONG.'
and so i wrote today, angry, feverish writing that had me yelling at children equally feverish over their own basic needs, and it left me feeling miserable, both about the yelling and the godawful words i committed to paper. i don't want to have to shoot myself in the head to be remembered but i'm willing to embarrass myself in other ways, and damn near started a new blog, because if that's not the way a failed writer offs himself these days, i don't know what is.
ODE TO BLOGGERS
i gave up on becoming famous
i'm much more interested in falling in love
with life
i said this out loud on my way to work
and laughed and laughed and laughed
i wrote all commercial-like, before, and i don't hate myself for it, but i'm glad it's done. i want to write like someone else and that means starting over, or just not doing it at all, which is fine by me. i just want to laugh, anyway, and get on from the deep thoughts part of the pool, where it's warmer. no, that's a horrible analogy, because the truth is that my favorite part of the pool is where it's 12 feet deep and i have to strain to get to the bottom, and remember when i was a kid and thought my head would burst from all the pressure. so this can only mean that writing is nothing like swimming, in terms of my taste buds. plus, no one can hear you laugh at the deep end, and my god that sounds like a horrible cliche. i'm holding her as tight as i can and still she feels alone, and that must mean i'm just not doing it right.
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