As the Kitty Burns

I walk home, one knee high sagging around my ankle.

I'm thinking.

My cat needs her kidneys flushed. Something is wrong, but I have no idea what. The nice doctor explained it to me on the phone, but a combination of what I can only assume is medical-speak plus his heavy Indian accent turned the explanation to gibberish. I don't understand accents on the best of days because...well...I'm a terrible person (isn't this the sort of thing politically correct, caring, and sensitive white folk know how to do?), but it's even worse when the words are unfamiliar to me.

All I know is she needs them flushed. She needs an IV. She needs an extended vet stay, and in a couple days, she needs her blood tested. Oh, and antibiotics. We can never forget the fun of giving a kitty antibiotics.

And I'm seeing little cartoon dollar signs flitting around my head, making a pass or two before fluttering off into the wide blue sky. I have money. I can pay for this. But it'll hurt. And the solution they're giving...well the doctor isn't guaranteeing it's a solution. There could be more money, more tests if this doesn't work.

I'm thinking of my mom, a single mother in Florida--back when Florida was still something resembling sane--struggling to make ends meet.

We were the only white faces on the black side of town, but back then that didn't mean what it does now. The neighborhood was by no means safe, but crimes didn't happen in broad daylight. Neighbors still looked out for each other, even if it was just keeping a wary eye on what was going on around the homes next to them. My mother could go outside and walk down the street without fear of being raped. I could play in my yard--front or back, we had both--without fear of being kidnapped or harmed. In fact, we had more to fear from the boys who liked to drag race their cars down the street than any criminal danger.

And all those black faces around us were in exactly the same boat.

We adopted a dog when I was four or five and named her Lassie. She wasn't a collie. She was, in fact, probably the spawn of several generations of sleazy back-alley encounters between breeds looking to kink it up with members outside their genetically exclusive gene pool. She was a small, enthusiastic mop of nervous love, her big brown eyes hidden behind bangs so long my mother often clipped them.

She was a pound dog, and that meant something different then than it does now. Anything from a pound had a fifty-fifty chance of having contracted some sort of disease or ailment, usually from the close quarters with other dogs or the merely adequate hygienic conditions. They weren't checked, and pounds didn't apologize. It was simply known, like you knew the sun was going to rise, that you took your chances.

Lassie, when she came to us, had problems. She wasn't fixed, for one thing; that was on our dime. I remember looking at her stitches, mom trying to explain to me what they were for. I also know she was ill, but I was little and it's been years. Ask me to tell you with what and I couldn't answer. I know it was two or three things, probably ears, fur/skin, and some bacteria or virus she needed medicine for. The moment we got that dog we had a money pit.

But my mother stretched her budget and that lovely little dog lived with us for nearly twenty years.

Keep in mind, my mom was a single mother--that's difficult in any day and age. She had only a high school degree, so she wasn't exactly raking in the bucks. And yet, in many ways she was better off then than I am now.

We owned our own home. Sure, it was dirt cheap and on the wrong side of town, and sure we only afforded it because of a special program hosted by the city (lowering crime by making prices affordable for families who weren't criminals to move in--it worked), but hey, we owned it. How many people could do that now, even if offered similar help?

Mom owned her own car. Not making payments, owned. And when a wreck wiped it out, she bought a new one. Sure it was old and not very fancy, and sure it wasn't speedy or pretty or really anything desirable. But it was reliable, not a junker, and was bought with money she saved.

We got a dog, and while the budget was tight while we nursed her back to health, we managed it.
She had one job, one, and it paid all the bills plus some left over. Very little, but some.
And, I can't stress this enough, she was raising a child all on her own.

And my mother, then, made less than I do now, even adjusting for inflation.

Fast forward ten years.

After her divorce and after discovering that her ex had found a legal loophole through which he didn't have to pay his court mandated child support--ever--she was essentially a single mom again, but this time with two kids. Still, she was also senior in her field, having the know how and experience to have moved up considerably in rank, and now made more than she did when I was a preschooler.

My grandparents bought her a trailer on a tiny piece of land nearly an hour outside town--if they hadn't we'd have been homeless. My grandparents bought her a car--if they hadn't, mom would be jobless. And to keep us afloat my mother maxed every credit card she owned, worked long hours, and when that didn't cover it she took on so many odd jobs they essentially became a second job in their own right. Money was so tight we didn't even have a dollar to spare for a candy bar.

Fast forward again another fifteenish years, give or take.

I'm single and childless. I make more now than my mother ever did--even adjusted for inflation--but I own nothing permanent. No car. No college, because I can't afford it and my credit is too bad to get loans--education is apparently NOT an equal opportunity offer. No home; I rent with a roommate, in fact. I own nothing but my books, my clothes, and my cats. Most of my money goes to bills, and I mean basic bills. Aside from internet what I pay falls under necessary--phone, food, electricity, water, sewer, gas. Don't get me wrong, I do enjoy some modest pastimes, like going to the movies or out with friends, but even these things are done pretty rarely.

And sudden disasters like my precious cat being sick? A nightmare.

Like most of my generation I live hand-to-mouth. I don't have credit cards (by choice) so I can't even pretend things are better than they are, that I am somehow wealthier than I really am.

And as I walk home, my knee high around my ankle, exhausted from too much work and too little sleep and hallucinating dollar signs hemorrhaging into the open sky, I wonder how we got here from where we started, not even a full lifetime ago.

I wonder if we'll ever have the energy to get mad or whether everyone else, like me, is so exhausted merely from the daily struggle to survive that they just can't rouse the energy to fight back. Or even to care.

And then I walk in the door.

Tropics Girl

Family Fun - Posting Challenge, Day 14

(Also be sure to follow along with Tina, Jean, Krista, and Tambo as they say much more sane and less esoteric things than me!)



So why am I sharing a picture with faces? Because it is totally and completely ludicrous.
I know, it doesn't look funny, but let me put it in perspective.

• There are 27 people in that photo.
• Of that 27, 18 are blood related, the rest are by marriage.
• All 18 are blood related as children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, or great-great-grandchildren  to the women in red.
• 10 are children, grandchildren, or great-grandchildren to the woman in blue right next to her.
• Only 2 are direct children of the woman in blue--3 are represented here if you include the grandchildren given to her by one of her children that has passed away.
• The woman in blue has 9 kids total.

Mull on that a moment. For most people, this picture would represent their entire family, plus friends. For my family, it is only a fraction of a percentage. Aside from my aunt's nine kids, my grandmother had three, neither of which started popping out offspring as...generously as my aunt, but both of which also have children, grandchildren, and possibly great-grandchildren as well. What you see here is actually a conservative family gathering.

Why don't I know for sure to what generation various family members can chart themselves? Because, in order to keep up with this family you need a programmable flow chart.

I figure, at the rate we're going, one out of every ten people will be blood related to my family by the year 2130.

Also, this casual poolside picture? Guess what time of year it was taken.

The smart ones caught the one hint in the photo and have already guessed it.

Christmas.

Poison Pen - Posting Challenge, Day 13

(Also be sure to follow along with Tina, Jean, Krista, and Tambo as they say much more sane and less esoteric things than me!)

Today is a letter to someone who's recently hurt me. Easy-peasy, since I happen to have been recently wounded, and wounded pretty terribly. There is nothing worse than finding out a friendship is false.

Dear Girl-I-Shall-Not-Name,

I'm past being angry, mostly. I'm past being hurt, mostly. Now I'm just feeling foolish, betrayed, and used. I kick myself daily for losing two extraordinary friends over someone like you. Sure, they were far from perfect, but gods know I'm not either. I could have simply, quietly asked them not to make fun of people I loved to my face and told them that wasn't cool. Instead I pushed, and pushed, and finally exploded.

And lost them.

And you, you gained them. You guys are bestest buds now. For over a year, one of them said the absolute worst things about you every chance he got, while the other very quietly stepped aside and let him do it, never even quietly asking him to pick a more appropriate crowd to vent his feelings to, or at least tone it down a notch; permission seemingly given and agreement made simply by never saying no. Neither ever spoke up for you in any way, not even to just keep things cordial when in mixed company. In fact, they had no use for you at all.

I spoke for you, time and again. I supported you from the first day I met you. I often spoke up for you when people mocked you, in spite of the trouble it caused me. I stepped forward when others stepped away. I bragged about the comics you created to new people who had never seen your work and pointed them towards your creations. I talked out problems with you when others were afraid to speak up. I was the one who finally told you why the bad blood existed between you and your tormentors (yes they were my friends, but let's face it, they were definitely your tormentors)--everyone knew, but I was the only one who had the crassness to step forward. I did it to try to and start the process of mending fences; after all, you can't correct what you don't know about.

And why did I do all this?



Because I believed in you. From the bottom of my toes to the tippy-top of my head, I truly, truly believed in you. I believed in your ever increasing maturity, in your ability to change and grow, in the sweet, wonderful girl I met; I totally believed in you. I believed in your inner strength, in your underlying sweetness, in your competence--untried but there--and in the light of your unique and wonderful personality. I believed you were creative, outwardly fragile but with a tough inner core, quirky, irreverent, and fun. You see the world differently than those around you, and I thought that was spectacular.

And if you sometimes whined, or got mad over stupid shit, or caused drama, or made mistakes...well, no one in our entire circle was blameless of any of those behaviors, especially not your tormentors. None of us stood without guilt, so I could not see why your judgment--a young woman with emotional problems who barely had any real world experience--should be so much harsher than the reaction those of us who were older, wiser, and should have known better.

So I stood up for you, time and time again. For a year solid, I stood for you when others were putting you down. I supported you, reached out to you when you were in crisis, and did everything I could to be your friend. And when matters escalated, I went to the wall for you, and lost two friends that were very dear to me, friends I loved, and who, even now, it hurts to be without.

And you know what?

I made the wrong choice.

Because the upshot was you making up with them--which was good--but dropping me like a hot rock the first time I did anything wrong. Or maybe the second time. Or the third. Or the fiftieth, for all I know, since you never told me anything was wrong. I just looked up one day to find you had dumped me on the comic site and on Facebook, no warning, no explanation, just boom, gone.
And, fool that I was, I honestly didn't believe it. When Facebook and the comics both went silent, I thought maybe you were going through something rough and just not posting. When I saw people in chat talking to you but no longer saw the reply, I assumed it was just scrolling too fast for me to see it. It really never occurred to me that you would ever do such a thing, and when cold realization finally dawned, it was one of the greatest shocks I've ever suffered.

You were a person that, if you needed a place, I'd have opened my home to, despite never having met you in the flesh. That was how much I trusted that the girl I got to know was real and genuine and just plain amazing. That was how much I trusted we'd made a real connection, something more than simple internet buds. That was how much I trusted you.

You're telling me now that you were looking for the right way to let me know why you tossed me away without warning, but the thing is, your actions don't back that up. It was a good two weeks or more before I figured out what was going on, and you never even dropped me a note in that time.You said you didn't want to hurt me, but I can't fathom how someone of your obvious intelligence could have figured that doing things the way you did would have somehow hurt me less.

When I called you on it, asked you calmly and rationally what happened, it was two days before I even warranted an answer. Even then the answer only came after you ignored my inquiry and I went off. And I still feel more like you replied because you were afraid I'd cause some sort of trouble than because you actually wanted to speak to me, and that you continued to argue with me because you felt pressured to do so.

This was something you backed up yourself when you ended your first note to me with; "Maybe I should have told you all of this BEFORE, but the fact that I felt this way wasn't going to change (emphasis mine)." It's the first time you mention anything is wrong, and the very first thing you tell me is that the friendship I foolishly thought we were building meant so little to you that you'd made up your mind it was over before even talking with me.

And the ironic thing? You'd spent well over a year--almost two, in fact--hurt that you were never told why the people who hated you so badly felt the way they did, and upset you were given, not a second or even a third chance, but more like a fifth or sixth one. But when it came time to deal with me, you dropped me without telling me what was wrong and gave no second chances.

You did to me what was done to you, and thought nothing of it.

But the worst, the absolute worst part of it? You proved them right. Your then-tormentors-now-friends? You proved everything that was said about you 100% spot on. I was warned, warned you treated people like this. I was warned that you didn't like people disagreeing with you, which was apparently my sin, to not agree with you on more than one occasion. I was warned you sliced people out of your life like this with no explanation and no second chances. I heard horror story after horror story.

But, foolish me, I make it a point not to listen to gossip. To understand that people--young people especially--can and do change. To think that because you were treating me with respect, that meant you'd give that same respect to everyone, and do so continuously. To think that you had taken the rift between you and those who had dumped and then mocked you as a life lesson.

I was so, so wrong. No lessons were learned. It's possible you only liked me not only because I was nice to you, but because, on that site, I was the popular kid, and more than nice people, you crave popular people. Once my star fell and you hitched your rising one to someone with twice my popularity--someone who, coincidentally, no longer liked me--you sure dumped me hard and fast. After all, you really didn't need me anymore, did you? You have what you want, so why bother ironing out the rough spots in our relationship? You don't need to work that hard, not with all your new friends basking in the glow of your new found stardom, quick to give you all the ego stroking you'll ever need.

Even worse, I lied to my friends, if only out of ignorance. I told them you'd changed, mellowed, weren't the same girl you had been. I guaranteed it. And when they'd had time to get over the hurt we'd slung at each other, they went to you with an open hand of friendship, driven partially by my words.

And you're going to hurt them.

Sooner or later they will disagree with you one too many times. They might accidentally hurt your feelings or piss you off; it happens sooner or later in every relationship. It's an inevitability. And when it finally does, you will do to them what you did to me; what you have done at least twice in the past that I know of, and more often that I have been told about through gossip.

You haven't changed at all.

The day will come that you will hurt my friends. Sure, they have no use for me anymore, and why should they? Pretty harsh things were said all around. But I still love them enough that it hurts every time I know they are online and we don't speak, every time I see comments left elsewhere and smiles given to others, and I know that door is closed to me forever. I'm not sure it will ever stop hurting.
And the clock is counting down until the day I have to watch from afar when the drama explodes all over again, when they curse my name for ever convincing them to trust you. And they'll be right to do so. It will be no less than I deserve.

I stood up for you, for the sweet, shy, sensitive girl I thought I knew. I went to the wall for you, risked everything and lost it, over you. I supported you, believed in you, and stood by you almost from the day I met you. And this is all it's worth, this...summary dismissal.

Know this; I will never ever stand for you again. To anyone. I will not show off your work. I will not introduce people to you. I will not set anyone else up for this kind of hurt, or for this sort of betrayal given in return for loyalty.

I know you are not a bad girl, or even a truly malicious one, but you are incredibly broken. And you are shallow, shallow about your relationships, and shallow about yourself. And until you pull your shit together, you will receive not one more iota of support from me.

Frankly, you haven't earned it, and you don't deserve it.

If I could go back and erase the entire confrontation, take back everything I said to my friends, I would. But I can't. All I can do is learn from this, and I have learned well. You have lost my trust, and you may never gain it back.

But then, I'm guessing that doesn't mean much to you anyway.

Someday it will. Someday you'll find someone you'll really want to keep, and you will do to them what you did to me, what you've done to so many others. Why? Because you refuse to learn from your mistakes or your life. And someday that someone will say the exact same things to you that I am now.

And you will deserve every word.

Maybe then you'll finally stop shitting on people and get your damned priorities straight.

Goodbye,
Me.

Blogging – Posting Challenge, Day 12

(Also be sure to follow along with Tina, Jean, Krista, and Tambo as they say much more sane and less esoteric things than me!)

I can't recall my first exposure to blogging. It was back when the net was new; back when LiveJournal was just starting out and hadn't been sold to companies who decided liberally sprinkling the pages with ads was somehow a good idea. I had wanted to keep a diary for a long time, but frankly, I suck at diaries. I'm one of those people that purchases them, keeps a day or two, then relegates them to the back of the bookshelf so I don't have to feel guilty every time I run across the empty pages. I thought maybe having people looking in on my work would help my determination to keep up with it, so I made my first journal.

Like all journals of young people, there was much emotion and angst, to the point I don't know how I ever got followers. But I managed with well over 100, which was a pretty respectable following in the early days of the net. It helped my memory, my emotional equilibrium, and my life in general. But at some point I befriended one too many of my flakier followers. I screamed one too many times where a boyfriend or girlfriend could see it. And the drama bomb exploded once too often in my lap.

So I abandoned it.

About the point I felt I could take it back up again, LJ had added advertisements, and it just didn't feel like the same place anymore. I already paid for my account, I did my part to support LJ for years, and saw no reason why I should be punished when times were lean. Especially when I knew (as everyone there did) that they weren't exactly hurting for money. I'd be there right now, but what's the point? I thought I'd give a different blog site a try instead.

I've since thought of taking it up again, as practice to getting back into daily writing. So far the "daily" part is an uphill battle, but at least the "writing" is happening. I am woefully behind, but I haven't given up.

Pic With Friend – Posting Challenge, Day 11

(Also be sure to follow along with Tina, Jean, Krista, and Tambo as they say much more sane and less esoteric things than me!)

These posts really assume I'm an interesting person, don't they?

Today is another picture of me with my friends, because, you know, I have permission to splash their faces all over the net. Not.

All right, here's one of my subversive pictures with a small and very prosaic story attached.





It was a new year party/birthday party of a friend, and we all got together, got a little smashed, and enjoyed such party essentials as "is the bathroom ever free," "long talks about nothing at all," "drinking games," "ease the munchies," and Rock Band. These days, no party is complete without Rock Band.

I don't really play guitar, and I find the game guitar fun, but not really my thing. I loved the drums--for about five seconds. The drum set was somehow not coordinated with the game right; you'd hit the drum, then about two seconds later the game would register the hit. The lag in anything else  would be barely noticeable, but in Rock Band precision timing is critical. It frustrated so many people that the entire drum set eventually got stowed.

This left guitar, bass guitar, and microphone. A lifelong attendance of choral classes had me gravitating towards, you guessed it, the microphone.

I spent a lot of the night singing, actually, with varying results. The 100% up there, however, was the apparent amazement of those around me when I belted out a perfect score on a song I'd never even heard before. Keep in mind, it was on Easy, and Easy is really, really forgiving. I tried higher levels with songs I did know and bombed badly.

But it made the message board anyway. Other well wishes and smart-ass remarks were erased so my accomplishment could be posted, and it stayed there the rest of the night.

I still say it was only because it was on Easy.

How is this a pic of me with friends? Well, every message there is from a party-goer. One was written by my roomie, one by her sister, and the rest from people I know. Except the well hung bird. I have no idea who drew that (or if it was originally intended to have a ding dong), but you must admit, it's an amusing little doodle. The bird seems genuinely surprised by his dong.

Places I've Been - Posting Challenge, Day 5

I snagged links today! Also follow along with Tina, Jean, Krista, and Tambo as they say much more sane and less esoteric things than me. :)

Today's demand is a picture of somewhere I've been. Give me a minute.

I'm back.

Here you go:

 

Not what you expected?

Well, I could tell you about my life in one of five different states or around forty different cities and small towns. I could talk about the six or seven other states I have visited. I could speak of mountains, forests, scenic highways, oceans, swamps, fields, and deserts. I could talk of famous cities, of festivals and events, of clubs and nightlife, even of places that have briefly been home to me as I passed through area after area.

I won't. I'm not travel guide, and besides, you've probably already been there too. If you haven't, Google it.

I want to discuss something a little more...mythic. More surreal. Maybe even crazy. I want to talk about the place where I grew up.

Somewhere in the mind of every lonely child is a friend, just waiting to be imagined. And somewhere in the mind of every abused child is a still small place, a place they used to get away. And that a child suffering both, a creative, lonely, frightened child might create a populated world to flee to...it makes perfect psychological sense.

But it was real to me, real enough that it altered my entire life. It was a land where, in dark corners of the forest, trees bled and screamed. Where unicorns--real unicorns, not these pansy ass, horse-with-a-horn-Jesus-myth-virgin-loving-wanna-bes--were rare, beautiful, intensely magical...and were the terrifyingly vicious fighters of myth. (Seriously, I don't care how you depict a unicorn, but if you are drawing a horse with a horn, you're DOING IT WRONG.) It was a land with dangers around every corner and magic that was just a little too chaotic to be trusted, a war-torn land where children were disposable and people were suspicious and frightened even of familiar faces, and yet was also a land of incredible, awe inspiring beauty and endless, boundless potential.

I tried to write about it, in fact, spent most of my childhood locked in a battle with myself, trying to depict this inner world to my satisfaction. I eventually put that story down and moved on, after thirteen years of trying. I came to realize how difficult it was to capture, and if I succeeded in my dream, if I managed something so well that it could be published and shared but I made a mistake in that world, it would be cemented in print forever. The very thought felt like a betrayal. So I moved on to write stories about worlds that I cared about so much less. I still loved them, mind, but they weren't Home.

I suppose no one can capture the spirit of their home very well, even if they are writing pure nonfiction, and not about a world that lives in their head.

Maybe I'll take it up again, someday.

In the meantime...if you are following me through these posts, you'll recall I mentioned that I am a weirdness magnet. Let me leave you with a little weirdness that is--probably, maybe--all in my head.

But, you know? Maybe not.

Habits - Posting Challenge - Day 4

So today is all about a habit I wished I didn't have. There are so many to choose from.

I suppose I will astound friend and foe alike by saying...I wish I was a little more positive.

And before anyone decided to go get their hearing checked, let me qualify that statement--what I really mean is I wish I was less like my mother. I have had a vivid reminder of how my mother operates, and while there are many good things I could say about her, her doomday predictions make me was to slam her head into the nearest wall repeatedly. I had nearly forgotten how much her negativity brought me down or how deeply her doubts sliced into my self esteem. I have managed to curb the tendency to be that bad myself, but I have not quashed it.

Don't get me wrong, I will never be Pollyanna, and I never hope to be one. Too much sweetness and light tends to give me screaming fits, and I run put on dark music or angry horror movies to make the teeth grating cheeriness dissipate. I do not believe in the best of humanity, and I am a firm believer in Murphy's Law. In fact, I sometimes suspect I am Murphy's butt boy.

But...there is a limit. And it's a limit I often cross.

I'm not even sure how to tackle this one because I'm never sure when I'm doing it. Can't ask my friends, as every one of them has a different definition of "negative," and the ones living closest to me are the cheeriest. Honestly, I think they're genetically predispositioned to it somewhere in their DNA. All I really want is a better balance, and maybe a justified belief in the best of things again.

This one will probably take some thought.
And therapy.
And possibly a miracle.

...was that negative?

Me With A Friend - Posting Challenge - Day 3

Today's is both easy and hard--show a picture of me with friends.

Easy because, hey!, very little writing. (Creative punctuation, must love it.) Hard because...well...remember what I said about photos?

But it's not just that, it's that I have pics taken of me by friends, or with just one or two friends, but the picture I would wish to share would have all the people who should share the limelight, and that doesn't exist. So instead, I give you a picture of legs.






This was a Chinese New Years party.  And the legs you see before you was the natural fallout of drinking at said Chinese New Years party. It was great fun.

For a while, whenever a friend and I would get drunk, we'd tussle. We'd hit, but not too hard; we weren't out to beat each other up. Mostly, we'd wrestle. Two large breasted, long legged women in short skirts, trying to take each other down.

As a matter of fact, no, we weren't the life of the mostly male dominated parties. We didn't do it for the men, you see. We often started in a quiet little corner, and it would be after we'd chatted for a long time with no sign things were headed that direction. We tended to wind up like this, in a deadlock, with neither winning and neither losing, though we would end the battles like children:

"I won!"
"Nu-uh!"
"Uh-huh"
"Nuh-uh. I got you in the piggy-nose lock!"
"Well I got you in the over-the-shoulder-boulder hold."
"That was cheating! Bras are off limits!"
"They are not."
"Yes they are!"

...you get the point. Sometimes we'd tussle again, most times we'd go for another drink and dance.
I think our crowning moment of awesome was at a Con. Some guys had started beating drums quietly down one end of a hall, just for fun, not for show. We wandered down to watch, and then the mood of the drums took us. We circled and feinted and tussled  and wrestled and hit while the drums pounded, two girls just feeling their inner cavewomen. I think we were both aware the guys were grinning as the watched, but there was not a catcall to be had, not a word of leering encouragement said, just silence and the pounding of the drums. It was like a spell was cast over us all.

We never tussled again after that. Life took us in separate directions, and besides, that was a tough act to beat.

But I know what will happen if we ever see each other again, someday. We'll laugh, reminisce, drink, and sooner or later, with half forgotten drums in our heads, we'll tussle.

A Resolution, Of Sorts…

My problem with writing? I’m not doing it.

After my last post I ran to my computer files and started to write. The inspiration was there, little foreign fingers digging into my brain, clawing their way sown synapses, off my finger, and onto the page. Only somewhere along the way, the journey went wrong. My brain seized, with no idea what came next. My fingers faltered, and the words that poured forth onto the page were the scribblings of a nine year old child. I don’t mean that I felt my writing was trite, bad, underinspired, or that I was frustrated with the trouble I was having, though all of this is true; I mean I literally wrote better when I was nine years old.

This is not writer’s block. I have suffered writer’s block in the past, sometimes for long stretches, and this feel nothing like that. It’s more like a form of giving up, on myself, on life, on everything. I have good reason to, it’s been a hard year, one where I have worried more often and more legitimately about keeping food in my belly and a roof over my head than I have in many, many years, perhaps ever. Things have never physically been this bad before, and I have been in some Very, Very Bad Places ™.

And the constant, constant, constant rejections and the seemingly deliberate attempts to slaughter my self esteem by the one company who did hire me have about ended me. I find my day to day struggles are very basic anymore–getting out of bed before noon is a triumph, and getting to sleep before dawn is a miracle achieved only through use of drugs. I never thought motivating myself to get dressed would be a Thing, but it is. Call it depression if you want; I call it just not seeing the point.

I suppose it’s no shock that, mentally crippled as I am, that disability has affected everything, even my one sanity release that costs me nothing but time. And gods know on sleepless nights, Time is a commodity I have to spare.

So, I’m going to try something. Maybe it’ll help and maybe it won’t, and maybe I’ll finish and maybe I won’t, but it’s worth a try. I am going to undergo the 30 day blog challenge. I’m going to write bits and spurts of nonessential data about myself just for practice. Just to get back in the groove. Just to see where it takes me.

One caveat–I hate pictures. I will fudge every demand for photos. You, my readership of three-or-less, will deal. However, I will promise to make what I do give in photos worth your while. You’re welcome.

Sharp-eyed folks may notice the time stamps getting a little fudged, but the posting on the right days. I make no apologies. If I get a job interview, have to take a cross-country flight (which I do soon), or simply have a nervous breakdown, I will be in no position or possibly frame of mind to post. I’ll make it up.

I hope.

I haven’t much faith in anything recently, so asking me to have faith in me is a little much. I will do this without faith, and see where it gets me. Hopefully writing better than the ghost of my nine year old self. That’s all I really ask for.

For those who want to know, this is how 30 Days of Me will go:

Day 01- A recent picture of you and 15 interesting facts about yourself.
Day 02- The meaning behind your blog name.
Day 03- A picture of you and your friends.
Day 04- A habit that you wish you didn’t have.
Day 05- A picture of somewhere you’ve been to.
Day 06- Favorite super hero and why.
Day 07- A picture of someone/something that has the biggest impact on you.
Day 08- Short term goals for this month and why.
Day 09- Something you’re proud of in the past few days.
Day 10- Songs you listen to when you are Happy, Sad, Bored, Hyped, Mad.
Day 11- Another picture of you and your friends.
Day 12- How you found out about blogging and why you made one.
Day 13- A letter to someone who has hurt you recently.
Day 14- A picture of you and your family.
Day 15- Put your iPod on shuffle: First 10 songs that play.
Day 16- Another picture of yourself.
Day 17- Someone you would want to switch lives with for one day and why.
Day 18- Plans/dreams/goals you have.
Day 19- Nicknames you have; why do you have them.
Day 20- Someone you see yourself marrying/being with in the future.
Day 21- A picture of something that makes you happy.
Day 22- What makes you different from everyone else.
Day 23- Something you crave a lot.
Day 24- A letter to your parents.
Day 25- What I would find in your bag.
Day 26- What you think about your friends.
Day 27- Why are you doing this 30 day challenge.
Day 28- A picture of you last year and now, how have you changed since then?
Day 29- Your favorite song.
Day 30- In this past month, what have you learned

When Practicality IS the Dream

It’s two weeks until Christmas and my blog is snowing. No, seriously, there is a snow GIF on my blog. I’m not sure how I feel about this. It’ll all melt off by January 4th–about the time that, I am told, snow will fall for real in my neck of the woods. Maybe by then I’ll have a job, so I can buy snow boots. Otherwise I’ll have to trust to thick socks and flimsy cloth sneakers.

I am looking once again down the barrel of my writing. The strange creatures that haunted the pages of my comics are calling to me again, wanting to give birth to themselves from the corners of my mind.

I’m not sure how I feel about that, either.

In the midst of a crisis of confidence--or perhaps a four-on-the-floor depression, who the hell knows?–I decided my writing was…well…bupkus. Utter, total, and complete bupkus. I was a hack, a wannabe, with all the writing talent of a squid, and I’d be better off investigating a real line of work, like, say, my local 7-11.

So I stopped. Completely.

But the ideas won’t go away. They flirt on the outskirts of my mind; tiny black-winged figures in the distance, soaring over the trees, somewhere between threatening and begging, waiting to be brought screaming to life beneath my typing fingertips. I find no joy in creating them, no joy in the process of making them coherent in the plot-line, and some pain in that they won’t tell me what they’re up to! I only have the vaguest, most frustrating idea.

But there is a perfect beauty to their flight, their menace, the way they can destroy and mutilate lives, then disappear without a trace. There is a terrible wonder in the way they devour others, and something inspirational in the heroes that oppose them, though they barely know what it is they’re up against. There are so many story threads here that I need a chart to map them–brother to sister, brother to friend, sister to friend, friend to friend, friend to lover, lover to lover, lives blown apart by the deepest connections, ties severed and wounds flayed as only the closest of friends can do, now in desperate need of mending before the darkness comes for them all.

And still, I’m writing a blog post instead, putting off the damned struggle of herding and wrestling all these ephemeral cats down onto the paper and pinning them in place, my collection of feral, furry little butterflies. I’m dodging the scratches to my psyche, the claw marks in my hopes and dreams, the little teeth biting viciously through my self confidence and tearing it away in chunks. I avoid the specter of my own failure by failing to try, and while that accomplishes nothing, at least I still hold the dream that I could have succeeded. You know, if I really wanted to.

You ever wonder how it is we can so easily lie to ourselves, even when we know what we’re doing is a lie?

These days I sometimes wonder if that’s all any of it is, a lie. I will never get a job or unemployment, but run out of money and be kicked out of my home. I will lose everything I own and roam the streets begging for a little compassion from a cash-strapped and increasingly hostile country, hoping not to be raped or murdered by people who see how vulnerable I am. I will never go overseas to meet my one true love, but break his heart and my own with false promises I can never keep. I will never see my son again. I’ll be seen as a shameful influence and a fuck-up by his parents. And I will never, ever, not in a million years, write my bestselling novel.

So why even try?

Sometimes the answer “because I need to eat and maybe keep warm” is the only one that keeps any of us going. It’s certainly a good enough one for me. So I will try again, for god and country and a desperate need to eat.

And who knows, maybe I’ll get lucky.

My (Surreal) Easter

When progress is Scary

Beyond Midnight

The storm has passed.

The strange grating thunder that sounded like a plastic bin being dragged down a driveway has been silenced, leaving only an endless unbroken stillness.

After a time, I plug my iPod into the stereo, chasing away the ghosts of silence. As if on cue, a plane passes overhead and in the distance a car revs, as if they were simply waiting for my permission to give voice to their passing. One of my cats trills as he passes through the room, on his way to seek water or maybe a more comfortable place to rest.

It’s midnight–the Witching hour–and I am alone; a child lost in the dark.