« lunch good. | Main | spelling be »
the turning
October 13, 2004
ahh, the cycle. last week, there was all the certainty in the world, the feel of inertia and momentum, driving me on. i felt the world around me more fully - potential and possibility and hope were all there, tangible.
things change, at least in my mind. like the weather on these october days in texas, one never knows what nature will bring until you step out into it. oppresively hot in the morning can become shockingly cool and brisk by lunchtime. sometimes, it rains while the sun beams down through only a few straggling clouds. similarly, the cocktail of chemistry in my mind keeps changing, and it's hard to keep up. how much responds to the world around me and how much of it changes and molds and filters what I see of the world around me, i sometimes really just don't know.
sorry, folks. i'm just at a momentary impasse. the promise of so many things a week ago turned out to be nothing - just imagination and foolish, ill-founded hope. what does remain constant is my desire to write, and the support of many of you who check up on this site now and again, though if i continue putting up things like this, my audience will and should fall off considerably.
writing is difficult right now, for a variety of reasons. i remember going to hear a lecture by one of my favorite authors, douglas adams. he described his writing process, the initial vast chunk of which involved buying the latest in word processing software, then spending untold hours getting it and his computer to get along, learning its eccentricities, etc. that's certainly been part of the problem - i'm trying to build this website, which involves a learning curve for the web design software. but first, clearly, i had to cleanse my system of the horrible adware/spyware beast that resides deep in its psyche. that process not only prevented me from writing and making progress on the web development, but it also kept me from getting any good sleep.
then there's the continuing problem of work and its obtrusiveness into what i increasingly consider my real life. all i want to do is write, and make music and sing on the side. i'm angry at how this lawyer bullshit interrupts my life every day, distracts me from what is a far better aim to my life.
today, i went to lunch at my now-favorite local chain pub, fado's, but the experience wasn't right. it was lonely, and silly, and dark. i imbibed the lager and lime writing catalyst, but the end product is not what people want to read - it's this crap you're maybe not even still reading at the moment. it is me, in all my ugliness, the downside, the yard sale that is my mind.
but it'll all pass, as it always has. you've all been so wonderfully supportive of me and what i write. without that, who knows where i'd be. those few who have visited this blog to see what I have to say - thank you, and please don't give up on me for this momentary lull. bear with me.
in the meantime, here's another piece of recycling for the bin, just a random scrap. why? because it seems like an alright idea with several harps in my head:
elijah
The air conditioner clicked and came alive, having just shut off. It shut itself off again, the victim of an obsessive-compulsive thermostat. Moby played on the computer, all languid beats and low voice, and Elijah lay on the couch. The Lakers and Nuggets ran back and forth across the television, muted, glowing quietly in the darkness. A sip of sparkling water, and he could hear the fizz sparkling and bouncing off the inside of the can, the sound metallic and tinny and sharp.
11:16p.m. The daily point of decision, to acquiesce, resign another day as lost, or to struggle to stay awake, to not succumb to the numb, blind comfort of sleep.
The pills lay in the drawer, untouched. The shirts hung, crisp, arms folded across themselves, at ease waiting to be wrinkled, for no good reason, really. Their backs would crush against the car seat sitting in traffic, and again in the chair at the office. The elbows would crease and crinkle as his arms rested on the desk, at the keyboard, sending keystrokes by the hundreds, forming words and sentences that would find usefulness for a day or a week, then be filed away and forgotten.
The cell phone lay quiet, full of numbers, calls from his parents avoided, calls from his basketball teammates taken, outbound calls to Diana’s voicemail that would go unreturned.
12:23a.m. Elijah sighed. The morning would be like all the others, even worse if he got no sleep. He opened the list of digitally recorded shows, picked the home improvement show in high definition. He liked the perky host, she was familiar, like she was there, speaking to him. He liked the female carpenter, full of creativity and spunk, and liked the other carpenter, tan and capable and likeable. He made Elijah laugh.
The distraction worked some, but his identity remained, the elephant on his chest. He was just a guy in an apartment, his life running itself without his intervention, a life with no story to tell, no victories, no plot, no climax, no intrigue, no gods, no love interest, no deus ex machina, no…
One of the designers was clearly in over her head, trying to hang a bed from the ceiling by chains. The carpenter guy half-joked sarcastically with her as he struggled in the attic. Elijah felt himself drift away, not to return until minutes or hours later, and he would rewind the program, discovering he had really only missed a few seconds. Where did all that time go? To some other life, or maybe a parallel universe where he did useful things with it?
He was drifting again, but before he did, he felt the hole again, the aching hollow growing within him, the numbness of beer in his limbs and his head, and felt again the warm intrusion of tears before he finally, mercifully, fell asleep. It was 2:48a.m.
Posted by Rob at October 13, 2004 06:25 PM