How is it that I used to write so much and, now, I can barely push out a paragraph? Any creativity or drive or whatever the fuck you want to call it is no longer directed towards the (precious, precious) world of blogging.
"Loved your post! Awesome! Especially loved this part where you wrote, blah, blah, blah."
I don't have that luxury anymore.
What once seemed like a big, rolling sea is a little bathtub now and I have to actually hoard my meager supply.
You see, my job has pulled the writer's soul out of me, I'm afraid. My miserable fucking job which shoplifts so much of my happiness did what I used to think was impossible.
So there it is. That's the answer to all the emailed questions I've received about why I don't write as much as had in the past.
By the time I get done dealing with my clients and my frightening manager, I'm done. I'm eaten up. The bathtub has drained.
I feel fucking robbed.
Friday, April 3, 2009
Tuesday, March 24, 2009
My mom died a miserable death a year ago. This is supposed to happen to other people. Not me.
Recently, I placed a framed picture of my mom above my desk. The picture is probably 15 years old which freaks me out. It freaks me out the oldness of it. And how old that makes me.
A few weeks ago, I took the picture out of its outdated frame and put it in a newer, cooler frame which is all metal and heavy. When you pick it up, it has some real heft to it.
So she now stares out at me smiling more than she usually did in pictures wearing a print dress she looked great in. I remember that day because I took the picture in our backyard after church when I was still mostly a kid.
A few things.
I just want to send it out to the world and the universe today that I miss her. I miss her everyday and I think of her everyday.
I want to say that I'm sorry it took me so long to settle down and she will never know her grandson or any future grandchildren because of it.
When I look at that picture, I can see her picking up my son and holding him and I can feel how happy she would have been.
I also want to admit I was too stoic at times with her because I felt like if she knew I was afraid of her cancer, she would be afraid.
She was one of those rare genuinely good people with a great sense of humor and she always did the right thing.
I don't know what else to say.
I really like looking at that picture.
A few weeks ago, I took the picture out of its outdated frame and put it in a newer, cooler frame which is all metal and heavy. When you pick it up, it has some real heft to it.
So she now stares out at me smiling more than she usually did in pictures wearing a print dress she looked great in. I remember that day because I took the picture in our backyard after church when I was still mostly a kid.
A few things.
I just want to send it out to the world and the universe today that I miss her. I miss her everyday and I think of her everyday.
I want to say that I'm sorry it took me so long to settle down and she will never know her grandson or any future grandchildren because of it.
When I look at that picture, I can see her picking up my son and holding him and I can feel how happy she would have been.
I also want to admit I was too stoic at times with her because I felt like if she knew I was afraid of her cancer, she would be afraid.
She was one of those rare genuinely good people with a great sense of humor and she always did the right thing.
I don't know what else to say.
I really like looking at that picture.
Wednesday, March 18, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Thursday, March 12, 2009
She said it helps to be a lesbian or hint of it if you want people to go cuckoo for your writing. I'm like, fucking disgusting.
Let's all sit around and talk about writing ad nauseum rather than actually doing any.
I'm 30,000 words into my manuscript. How about you?
I'm 30,000 words into my manuscript. How about you?
Tuesday, March 10, 2009
Not using punctuation makes it a poem. Right?
Ivy grew out of the laptop
and caught me he said
encircled his man wrists
as he reached for his hot tea
whilst I slept with our son
in front of the wall of
pulsing television
and caught me he said
encircled his man wrists
as he reached for his hot tea
whilst I slept with our son
in front of the wall of
pulsing television
Friday, February 13, 2009
Mice
So, what you do is hold the mouse down by the back of the skull with two fingers and, using your other hand, pull their tail with a quick, decisive snap. It’s called cervical dislocation.
I mean, you have to really snap that tail though. No gloves. Better feel if you don’t use gloves because they’ll turn around and bite you if you aren’t careful.
You must be cruel to be kind because if you doubt yourself for half a second, if you hesitate, if you don’t pull hard enough, if you second guess the positioning of your fingers on their itty-bitty cranium, you will only wound them. Probably, you’ll break their back and cripple them and they will scrabble awkwardly on the table in front of you. Suffering.
At that point, the sick adrenaline roars through your body and your hands shake harder.
Trembling hands pinning the injured, struggling mouse down again for another go round.
Or you could do what I did the first time and start yelling for help.
Awful battle in my head. You have to be brutal or you hurt them. But you really don’t want to hurt them so you hesitate. Your heart’s not in it so you don’t pull hard enough. Such a dilemma.
It wasn’t my favorite thing to do.
And you’re calling me a monster? Well, fuck off. Fuck you!
Fuck you, especially, if you are a meat-eating, leather-wearing hypocrite.
Those mice served a higher purpose. A much higher purpose than ending up as floating brown shit in the city’s municipal sewer system.
Maybe you wanted that steak because you got a big ass raise and think you deserve it or maybe you went for the grilled chicken. (Grilled chicken is such a pussy thing to eat, by the way. If you order that in a decent restaurant, the chef knows you are a total pussy and so does the waiter.)
Whatever. Hypocrite.
The PETA people can kiss my ass, too.
But back to our little mouse. It’s a ‘she’ by the way. Because not only do we have to sacrifice her but we allowed a male mouse to have his way with her two weeks before her execution date.
So, she’s carrying his pups. And we need’em. Gots to have’em.
And now she’s dead. Flip her over on her back and squirt some alcohol on her. (I preferred ethanol.) Take scissors and snip a hole through her skin, low on her belly. Put down the scissors and rip her abdomen open. Sort of like you when you are on a one and a half hour flight to a medium-sized city and all they give you is a tiny package of peanuts.
Tear her abdomen open just like that little bag of peanuts.
When you do it, you’ll never forget the smell of her. It’s sharp. It’s bloody. Raw. It combines with the alcohol fumes and I know someone who swears they salivated every time they sac’d a mouse.
They weren’t proud of this though. They weren’t bragging or anything.
You’ve opened her up now and there they are! Her pups and they’re still alive. But, alas, not for long.
As far as a fetus goes, they’re really cute so you frown a little as you pull them out of their little casings.
Now pick that scissors up.
And snip off their heads. Take a good look at their tiny, sad heads and sigh to yourself.
Nobody said research was easy.
You have to dissolve them now so drop the headless bodies into tubes and add some hungry enzymes.
They’re ready now. It’s the cold, cold chill for them.
Pop the tubes into the liquid nitrogen tanks and throw away their mother and the heads and the gore.
Justify it to yourself once more.
(Hey, that rhymed!)
I mean, you have to really snap that tail though. No gloves. Better feel if you don’t use gloves because they’ll turn around and bite you if you aren’t careful.
You must be cruel to be kind because if you doubt yourself for half a second, if you hesitate, if you don’t pull hard enough, if you second guess the positioning of your fingers on their itty-bitty cranium, you will only wound them. Probably, you’ll break their back and cripple them and they will scrabble awkwardly on the table in front of you. Suffering.
At that point, the sick adrenaline roars through your body and your hands shake harder.
Trembling hands pinning the injured, struggling mouse down again for another go round.
Or you could do what I did the first time and start yelling for help.
Awful battle in my head. You have to be brutal or you hurt them. But you really don’t want to hurt them so you hesitate. Your heart’s not in it so you don’t pull hard enough. Such a dilemma.
It wasn’t my favorite thing to do.
And you’re calling me a monster? Well, fuck off. Fuck you!
Fuck you, especially, if you are a meat-eating, leather-wearing hypocrite.
Those mice served a higher purpose. A much higher purpose than ending up as floating brown shit in the city’s municipal sewer system.
Maybe you wanted that steak because you got a big ass raise and think you deserve it or maybe you went for the grilled chicken. (Grilled chicken is such a pussy thing to eat, by the way. If you order that in a decent restaurant, the chef knows you are a total pussy and so does the waiter.)
Whatever. Hypocrite.
The PETA people can kiss my ass, too.
But back to our little mouse. It’s a ‘she’ by the way. Because not only do we have to sacrifice her but we allowed a male mouse to have his way with her two weeks before her execution date.
So, she’s carrying his pups. And we need’em. Gots to have’em.
And now she’s dead. Flip her over on her back and squirt some alcohol on her. (I preferred ethanol.) Take scissors and snip a hole through her skin, low on her belly. Put down the scissors and rip her abdomen open. Sort of like you when you are on a one and a half hour flight to a medium-sized city and all they give you is a tiny package of peanuts.
Tear her abdomen open just like that little bag of peanuts.
When you do it, you’ll never forget the smell of her. It’s sharp. It’s bloody. Raw. It combines with the alcohol fumes and I know someone who swears they salivated every time they sac’d a mouse.
They weren’t proud of this though. They weren’t bragging or anything.
You’ve opened her up now and there they are! Her pups and they’re still alive. But, alas, not for long.
As far as a fetus goes, they’re really cute so you frown a little as you pull them out of their little casings.
Now pick that scissors up.
And snip off their heads. Take a good look at their tiny, sad heads and sigh to yourself.
Nobody said research was easy.
You have to dissolve them now so drop the headless bodies into tubes and add some hungry enzymes.
They’re ready now. It’s the cold, cold chill for them.
Pop the tubes into the liquid nitrogen tanks and throw away their mother and the heads and the gore.
Justify it to yourself once more.
(Hey, that rhymed!)
Saturday, January 31, 2009
I was looking through his blog roll and I'm pretty sure he keeps half of you on there because he feels some obligation. Sorry. Just being honest.
Also. There's one person who goes beyond obligation. I read your posts and they make me feel as uncomfortable as when Mikey on Swingers kept calling Nickie back when he got home from the club. Over and over and over.
You OVERSHARE. It's hard to feel sympathy for you. Yuck.
Also. There's one person who goes beyond obligation. I read your posts and they make me feel as uncomfortable as when Mikey on Swingers kept calling Nickie back when he got home from the club. Over and over and over.
You OVERSHARE. It's hard to feel sympathy for you. Yuck.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
My Traitorous Computer
Back in the day we wrote and wrote and wrote on our blogs and loved our new innerweb friends and some of us put up pictures of ourselves.
= )
= )
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
