20MAY2012 – Concept: a human life is fully-realized within five weathered pages of a paperback novel, one pressed between many on a shelf near the back of an old bookstore, just to the left of a hand-lettered cardboard sign: FICTION.
Background characters in a novel are summoned forth from the No Thing and brought to life with such mastery, such clarity and depth of definition that the Reader can’t help but identify with these imaginary beings, understanding and identifying with them in a sudden flash of entirety. The Devil lives in the details. These fictional lives brush up against the Reader’s own with unexpected force, jarred into creation by vivid descriptions of spilled drink, flowing tears, clever plans, the rasp of whiskers or raucous laughter, such that the Reader can’t help but cheer them on.
Don’t get cocky. They used to cheer for lions, too.
But then the thumb is licked and the fourth page is turned and somewhere near the bottom of page five, the character is killed off. Is this cruel? Not particularly, that’s just how the story needed to be told.
“We are stories telling stories.” We have control over our own story right up until the moment when it collides with the storyline of another character. (Either we happen to them, or they happen to us. Depends on your perspective, really.)
These fictional characters live so completely on these yellowed plains, covered from head to toe in every aspect of what makes them real, existing behind and between each and every single letter on the page. The postcards, the tickets stubs, the dryer lint, the bar tabs, the take-out containers, the music collections, the book collections, the love letters, the grocery lists – all of the debris and mementos of their imaginary lives – are just dust trapped in the cracks and crevices of every foot of serif of every word of every sentence of every paragraph of the few pages they’re given, compacted by years of fucking and fighting and fear of failure, French fries and Friday nights, the whole thing rusted over with sweat like the pocketknife of an old man. Every word breathes, every letter hums. The characters aspire to learn everything there is to learn about the pages on which they exist; the height, the width and the location of the strange indentation at the upper edge of the third page where a worm ate its way into their falsified reality…
We can tell ourselves what free and wonderful beings we are and insist that everything is one big gorgeous goddamn pageantry. But you and I both know that we can’t travel beyond our own sixth page, and we can’t escape what’s coming up fast from the bottom of the fifth one.
Our destiny, too, is to be fed feet-first and screaming into the Great Grinder of Storytelling; we are brought to life so that the Reader may identify with us and we are killed off in such a way as to propel the story along and make the survival of the remaining characters that much more dear.
“All God does is watch us and kill us when we get boring. We must never, ever be boring.” – Chuck Palahniuk
We are trapped like dolphins in a round tank, pinging ourselves into madness. (I think, therefore I am/very sad) We burn brightly while we can, but in the end we simply aren’t equipped to make it to the epilogue.
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The above (crudely) illustrates a nagging sensation I’ve had for many years, that I left the factory incomplete, minus some very important pages from my owner’s manual, that I’m not a fully fleshed-out character in my own right. I don’t mean that I lack experience – hell, no. I’ve been a-many places and I’ve seen a-many things, and I’m just as impressed by life as you are.
But the miles aren’t long enough, and the dreams aren’t bright enough. I feel like a simulation, a placeholder, the storekeeper in an early Nintendo game, a character on the Holodeck — something programmed with a limited number of responses despite being part of a greater complexity. A one-act play in five pages. Trapped on the stage, unable to see past the lights…
I wanted to be an astronaut until I realized that I sucked at math. That was the fourth grade. I’d failed the same stupid test for the third time in a row, consequently developing a deep, psychological hated for red ink pens…
My next “when-I-grow-up moment” didn’t really come until high school, when I decided I was either gonna be the guy who made monster suits and spaceships on movie sets, or I was gonna be a writer. I’d been writing since I could hold a Crayon and figured it was as good a destiny as any.
I was still a freshman in high school when I typed up a nine page short story about a guy who drove around the country hunting down the losers of a state-sanctioned lottery as an alternative to global thermonuclear warfare. I sent the story to my parents, who unbeknownst to me sent it to a publisher, who in turn called me up and told me that if I finished the story before the end of the summer, I’d have myself a book deal. I panicked, blindly polishing every spark of creativity out of the story, missed the deadline and shelved it forever.
But the experience gave me a real push toward words. From that point on, I became obsessed with writing. Maybe this was a doable destiny! I started forming the idea in my head that if I just focused on this lone and immaculate objective, I’d someday perform a great and magnificent feat: I envisioned doing something amazing, something that could change the course of history and unite the world in a common emotion, like an athlete who trains their whole life for one shining moment while overcoming great obstacles along the way.
I decided that I wanted to be able to express human emotion in a way that no one had ever done before.
Still in high school, I looked into haiku on the advice of a much-respected English teacher, quickly becoming a fan of the medium’s prison shiv beauty — short, sharp and, inserted just beneath the ribcage, designed to take your breath away.
In just seventeen
syllables, I swore I could
smell cherry blossoms.
As you can imagine, I was crap at writing haiku. Everything I wrote looked suspiciously like something someone else had already written a long time ago and I felt ashamed. Plus, I’d made the mistake of telling the wrong people my dreams. Presently I gave up on haiku. Why not? I was nowhere near a temple, and there were no monks to guide me. Sweeping the floor was just sweeping the floor, and a glass of water was just a stupid fucking goddamn glass of water.
Still obsessed with words, I then had the notion that a person could somehow open their mouth and let brand new sounds tumble forth — words and phrases never before spoken by a human mouth, in any language, by any race, anywhere on the face of the Earth. Beyond dead languages, beyond glossololia. I thought that maybe the key to expression was locked inside this new box…
Except I had no database or monthly scientific journals to base my findings upon. So I made a lot of retarded noises and jotted them down, hoping one of them might be even slightly virginal in nature.
(It’s no wonder that I remained in a similar physical state until I was in my early 20s.)
After that, I wanted to come up with an answer for the question of why we find some people more attractive than others. I thought that maybe it had something to do with the measurements of the human face — the height, width or angle of the nose, the spacing of the features, the length of the jawline, the width of the mouth, or the specific color of the eyes. What if all these factors added up to some sacred number, one that doomed a small group destined to succumb as prey to holy integers? Years later, I would find this on the internet:
It’s nice to know that as an adolescent, I wasn’t completely off the mark; just off my rocker. And understandably horny.
Following high school, I gave up on my dream of being a special effects artist. It seemed the only way to achieve this was to move to Los Angeles and hang around on movie sets until I found someone to teach me. Instead, I applied and was accepted to a prestigious Midwest art college. I was hopeful — until they told me how much it would cost. So I revisited my writing dream and, after reading too much Hunter S. Thompson, decided I wanted to be a war correspondent.
And Uncle Sam was gonna fund it, because I sure as fuck couldn’t.
At first I considered a stint in the army, or maybe the Marines. I’d need to learn some very valuable survival skills before setting out into the wild. I had a vision of myself in four or five years time; a half-smoked cigarette permanently attached to my bottom lip, a gaggle of battered cameras slung around my neck, an ancient carbine across my back, dust-caked goggles pushed high on my forehead, and an ancient Underwood under one arm. Once I finished my enlistment, I’d take any assignment, no matter how dangerous. And wandering to some of Earth’s far-flung shit holes, I’d explore the last remaining exotic lands still hidden from the light of Western progress. I would write stories about the things I saw there, and take photographs of the fascinating people I met.
And one day I would simply miss my deadline, never be heard from again. That was my retirement plan.
I was not yet 21.
So I approached several recruiters and attempted to make an intelligent decision based on the horrible lies they were paid to tell me. I tested well, and applied for jobs in photography, journalism and for some reason, cryptology. But the recruiters all told me those fields were closed, and that I should pick something else. We went round and round in this manner until finally, disgusted and hopeless, I stormed into an office and spoke thusly to a Navy recruiter:
“I want the most far-flung, whacked-out job you have, something that will take me to the far side of the globe, without threatening to bring me one inch closer to the chair I’m sitting in.” And that’s the story of how I never became an astronaut, or a war correspondent, or the guy who makes monster suits or spaceships for movies.
Had I known that recruiters are instructed to ‘guide’ people into certain job fields where their respective service was experiencing shortages, or had I only been willing to wait. Well, the outcome might have been different.
Instead, I went to Europe and built bombs for four years.
I’m pleased to say that the desire to write came with me. I started keeping a journal just after high school, and I took it with me where ever I roamed.
Journal writing frustrated the fuck out of me at first. I lacked skill, and I was impatient. I was in a big damn hurry to write perfect things and powerful sentiments. I didn’t know the first fucking thing about real writing but I still wanted to do something amazing, something so insightful that it could lift the veil of reality, and part the curtain to another world. I wanted to write modern spells and conjure new truths.
I wanted to surpass all previously written works for their ability to inspire and split foreheads with the lightning of the profound. I didn’t even know what the fuck I was gonna write about, but I figured that once people read these holy words the message would spread like wildfire…
The world would lay down arms. Millions of people would wake from a terrible dream, weeping and gnashing their teeth. The leaders of the world would turn to one another and exclaim, “Goddamn, but we’ve been going about this all wrong! The last book has been written, all words can rest! We must now aspire to fuck one another with the cock of peace and harvest grain together under the same sun, washing our clothes together in the great river and turning our swords back to plowshares yet again. God won’t save the world. Science won’t save the world. The earth plain-ass wasn’t meant to be saved. This book has said everything we’ve been trying to say, everything we ever thought about saying, and everything we probably would have said in the next ten thousand years, but didn’t know it yet!”
Sure, I was a pretentious ass. I wanted to write magic holes through mountains, and weave spells, blah, blah, blah. But I also genuinely wanted to understand beauty, and lust, and savagery. I secretly hoped I’d go crazy when I got old so I could map my experience in a journal, holding on clarity like a fading lamplight as I ventured down that last and darkest of tunnels. I was convinced that there was so much more to the world, but I didn’t know how to express it beyond my diet of tabloid headlines, song lyrics and science fiction movies. Sometimes the words were right there on the tip of my tongue. I wanted to be able to communicate anything to anyone, and make the whole world understand everything.
But how could I? I didn’t understand myself, and I couldn’t separate myself from what I wanted to write about. I didn’t know where to begin, or where I ended. I didn’t know jack shit.
So I kept writing.
I continued to write through my early twenties, but without success. Journals came and journals went. I wrote letters about this, that and the other thing. My friends were full of praise, and they let me live in the world I’d created. I was The Writer.
I devoted years of attention to the recommended greats – the Beats, those who’d come before me and who by measure of their poverty and fearlessness were far more devoted to the craft than I knew how to be, each of them a pioneer in some regard. They explored and exploited their own wormhole, staking their claim to a particular voice or style one step ahead of the gold rush.
The voices that called loudest to me were: drugs, music, sex, and road trips – oh, my! And the strangest of those voices? Assassins. (Giant fucking millipedes?? Really??)
I wasn’t prepared to give up on writing, but I also realized I wasn’t very good. Still, I promised myself one drunken night in a land very far away that if I ever became homeless I’d still carry a pen and a piece of paper. “You can abandon your work, but your work will never abandon you.”
Years passed, and I thought that perhaps stronger measures were called for. Suppose I made a Robert Johnson deal with You-Know-Who, and waited my turn at the midnight crossroads, armed with the wing of a bat and the eyes of a newt. Would the Horned One grant me my deepest desire based on the strength of a pinkie swear, or was I going to have to slit my palm with a crude dagger carved from the jaw bone of a murdered stag? Headless hooves stomping in the bloodied winter grass, the end result of my quest to harness above as the below…
But I didn’t believe in the Devil, and I didn’t actually think I could murder a stag. So that plan was out.
Time passed. Journals were purchased and filled. The majority were dog-eared, covered in duct tape and existed pretty much as ad space for my ego, their pages weighted with stapled concert stubs, proclamations, one-liners written on airliners, photographs of models, quotes torn from magazines, strange things and coffee rings, but mostly drunken heartache. Twenty years, nine countries, five states, three islands, one Indian reservation, and one snow globe later, and still I have no idea of what I was trying to say.
My apartment is pitch black tonight, and my hands look so much older by the glow of this laptop screen. Time is out there, snorting and stomping the snow, exhaling demons from its nostrils, waiting… sometimes I think I can almost feel it at my elbow.
Like right now.
I’ll be 40 in a few months, and no closer to writing anything more powerful than a good one-liner. In the absence of my all-powerful epic, I’ve managed one novel, sixty short stories and thanks to a second enlistment in the other nautical-sounding of our Armed Forces, a stack of official-sounding press releases — none of which has ever escaped being disemboweled by a red pen.
There is the known, which we sometimes tire of. And then there’s the rest of it.
All I’ve learned about life is that I don’t know much. And from what I can tell, neither does anyone else. Everything we think we know takes place on this planet, and in this dimension. We are born here, and we die here. We are bound to this rock. The stories we tell are of this world, for this world, and by this world. They describe our experiences in this dimension, and how we live this life. And we know only these stories and their endless spin-offs. We’ve described our home to death, and pretty much worn out our tongues. I don’t think there are any virginal sounds left.
I recently deleted The Doors from my music collection, but I’ll give Jim Morrison one last nod: “No one gets out of here alive.”
There’s no such thing as magic, only science we haven’t figured out yet. Emotions are not facts, and love – as much as you wish it wasn’t true – is purely chemical. Relationships are all about timing, security and chemistry. And one man’s words aren’t gonna change the world, so long as there are people around to disagree with them.
Being successful in this life only means that your physical needs and comforts will be taken care of while you’re alive; inhabiting your body, existing in this dimension and playing your role in this traveling production.
The pawn and the bishop go back in the same box when the game is over.
But there has to be more! Something just beyond, something left behind, maybe something we’ve forgotten? I feel as though we’re living in a collective dream, standing tall on the edge of a trance: All the while you thought you were having a lengthy conversation with Iggy Pop in a half empty bar late one summer night in 1993, in reality you’ve been standing in the checkout line of a Memphis convenience store for the past ten minutes, transfixed by the mutated face staring back at you from a Pringles can on the conveyor belt, and frankly people are beginning to notice…
In the end, maybe Words have failed me. Maybe I failed the Words. Maybe there was nothing to fail. George Washington Carver once said that if you love something long enough, it would give up its secrets. Was I deemed not worthy to peek behind the curtain? Did I perform the wrong spells? Whatever the reason, whenever the moment, when it came time to select my Holy Path, I chose the soft option.
And so my reward was a different life. Instead of leaving this world on a pillar of fire to walk among the stars; instead of traveling to distant lands and capturing beauty reserved for only the bravest; instead of a day-to-day fight for survival and a life lived on the edge of a fast-moving knife; instead of summoning sentences both sage and surreal, crafting tales with the power of the Old Gods like the Jackie Chan of Juxtaposition, or the Wolverine of the Who, What, Where, Why and When…
Instead, I’m writing this blog.
Thanks for reading.
(There may be secrets left, but I’ll be damned if I know where to look for them.)
03JUN2010 – On the train to NYC, slowed to a near-predatory crawl beneath a railroad overpass somewhere south of Pennsylvania. If this train had a long furry tail and a thing for yarn, we could expect to come bursting from this tunnel within seconds in hot pursuit of fuck only knows.
Speaking of improbability, if you’d told me six months ago that I’d be moving to New York City and furthermore, that I’d be excited about it, I’d have recommended you for a straight jacket and a cameo in a Quiet Riot video. And yet, here I am; packed, racked and rolling north on a true blue summer morning. Our ETA is approximately 1040, and I plan to be in my new apartment by noon.
The movers came yesterday; it felt rather strange being on the other side of the paperwork. I saw myself as a fresh out of high-school kid in a bland grey t-shirt with a truck on the front, the sweat wrung from my body by the gallons and the doomed feeling of being completely spent before discovering the pool table in the basement, which won’t fit on the truck. I think being a mover was what drove me to a life of minimalism. I mean, who needs all this shit?! Just ‘cos they sell it doesn’t mean you gotta buy it.
Time passes, and I sit watching the scenery rush past. My thoughts are an indistinguishable roar. I feel like a blind man at a cocktail party, unable to draw one voice from the multitude. Sometimes words fail me. I could live for a thousand years and still never reach the mastery of language that life and experience deserve. “Sometimes,” it has been written, “a hundred thousand volumes of knowledge aren’t enough, and sometimes one word is too much.” Yeah, I get that. Holding the cosmic unfathomable in one hand, and the Oxford English dictionary in the other doesn’t quite weigh out. It’s a like hunting for fireflies with a bear trap. I stare out the window some more, watching the graffiti evolve as we near the cradle of Krylon.
LT: Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds “Abattoir Blues”. Sudden hunger and a craving for caffeine propel me from my seat and I hum a little tune as I amble toward the cafeteria car. “I went to bed last night and my moral code got jammed/ I woke up this morning with a frappuccino in my hand.” The lurching and bumping of the train reminds me of being at sea; taking three weeks to cross the Atlantic Ocean on a three-masted barque. You’ve not properly lived until you’ve spent hours vomiting over the side of a confiscated war prize in heaving seas; strapped into a safety harness and clutching the rail for dear life, shivering uncontrollably in the freezing wind with the salty taste of ocean water on your lips. Eventually I got my sea legs (and some rather strong medication), but like the man said: “The future’s uncertain, and the end is always near.” He also said, “Never vomit into the wind.” That’s good advice, too.
Moving forward along the train now, counting up the number of doors as they spring open like the jaws of a hungry thing until I arrive at the dining car. One Alexander Hamilton later, I’m the proud owner of a breakfast sandwich, a can of Red Bull and, ha ha, a frappuccino; this in addition to the large cup of black coffee purchased at Union Station about an hour ago. A writer’s mind must remain limber. It’s not my fault that Amtrak doesn’t offer quality speed at a fair market price. I work to maintain balance with a flimsy cardboard tray in my hands, contemplating the rushing ground and churning steel going clickety-clack just beneath my feet as I move between cars. Headed aft and aware of the math, I make way back to my seat with my precious breakfast treasure, counting back down the doors and checking off the human landmarks as I pass them by: Sleeping Girl in Bright Blue… check. Grown Man Watching “Garfield” On His Laptop… check.
Fresh off the train, I was following the herd across the platform, thinking that very soon this city would become second nature and muscle memory, when my leg experienced a mild earthquake. I fished my vibrating phone from the thigh pocket of my cargo shorts and read the message; a rather random text from my old friend Katie Orlando welcoming me – sort of – to NYC: You’ve got to go to Au Bon Pain! she insists.
Me: Why? (I text back) Are you there?
Katie: No. They have the best food. Seriously.
Me: (stunned.) You so crazy. I just rolled into town, and you want me to try out a chain restaurant??
Katie: See if that contortionist guy is down at South Street Seaport. He performs daily in a neon tiger print outfit, ha, ha.
Forty-five minutes later, I’ve picked up my keys and turned them in the lock for the first time. I put my bags down in the middle of the room and wander through the apartment, turning on the lights, turning on the water, opening cabinets. Time to work: I set up shop on the granite countertop. Open my laptop (free signal from somewhere!), take out a pad of paper and find a pen. I call the electric company, the gas company, the internet company, and set up new accounts with each. I play “Simon Says” with FedEx and my bank; they blame each other during my attempt to locate a certified check for $1,000 I’d sent to my broker several days earlier.
Simon Says I sent the check from the bank’s website. Simon Says FedEx neglected to give the bank a tracking number. Simon Says someone at FedEx couldn’t find the very visible Madison Avenue address it was intended to be delivered to. It’s being sent back to me and then back to my broker. Oops! You didn’t say, “Simon Says!”
Next, I empty my backpack and head out the door. Objective: Find a local coffee house (check), a deli (check), a proper grocery store (check). A shopkeeper with one leg, glittering eyes and a grip like cast iron gives me a free pint of Manhattan espresso coffee cola because I had no cash — only plastic — and his ATM is down. I’m about to put the bottle back in the reefer when he smiles, bags the bottle, and hands it over. “I’m Timmy,” he says with a thick Brooklyn accent while pumping my hand vigorously. “You look like a decent guy. Just come back some other time.” True story! At this point, I’d been in New York exactly three hours. I think I’m gonna dig this place.
SATURDAY – Boneshakers for breakfast; coffee, and a vegan sandwich named after a bicycle. (Stopped off at the deli and gave Timmy the three bucks I owed him, promising to return for my butcher needs.) The day is getting sticky and the streets are full of trucks. Some of them are bringing new things, and some are hauling the spent remains of other things away. A cool breeze flutters down from the ceiling fan and sits on my shoulder like a small bird as I sip my coffee. My apartment is bone empty at present; a wooden wasteland populated only by what I carried in on my back. I’ve been sleeping on the hardwood floor, eating on the floor, pacing and washing the floor, dusting the counter tops, polishing the chrome…
Went into the office yesterday to see what all the fuss was about. It’s strange to see my name outside the door. (Just means they’ll know who to throw against the wall first when the revolution comes to town!) My desk looks out over a quiet park of oak trees, a colorful playground and beyond that, the towering fingers of the financial district. I can hear the mournful bellow of the Staten Island ferry as it departs the pier, and there’s a place less than a block away that serves ethnic food and strong coffee. Slowly, the pieces come together…
Seated now at a weathered wooden table, looking at the bicycling paraphernalia that lines the walls, and an outdated exhibit flier affixed to the window with loops of yellowed tape. Good sandwich! I chew slowly, gazing out the window at the ink-saturated street urchins passing by. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide. I’m not on vacation, and this isn’t another travel gig. I live here now. For the moment, this is everything. On the plus side, Boneshakers has tons of electrical outlets and strong, cheap coffee. I’m told it’s important to establish ones haunts early on.
Observations and eavesdropping: I read somewhere recently that 90 percent of conversation is gossip, the passing of memes and the transmission of vital information which affects ones social status and therefore their ability to survive and provide.
I wander the streets of Planet Will-burg for several hours, taking lefts and rights as they seem relevant and scouring the walls, doorways and other vertical surface areas for stencils and graffiti. It’s powerful fucking hot. I’m glad I chose a neighborhood with shade trees! By accident, I happen to meet one of Boneshakers’ owners. She was sitting alone on the wide steps of a church a few blocks away from the café with an empty drink cup at her feet, taking a break from a challenging morning. Turns out the refrigerator had come unplugged in the night, and all the milk had spoiled. Apparently this Yelp-approved café was originally designed as a bike repair shop that served coffee, but customers wanted a place to sit down and surf the internet. Same as they do anywhere else, I guess. We shake hands, and she goes back to work.
Will-burg appears to be putting on a city-wide production of some sort, which calls for the cast of thousands to be adorned in old school tattoo flash, facial piercings, thrift store clothes and ironic t-shirts as they crisscross Brooklyn astride their duct-taped ten-speed bicycles. The only other explanation would mean such items were a prerequisite for citizenship, and that’s too just silly to be true.
Later, I sit on a random bench with a bag full of coconut juice and fresh oranges, jotting observations in my notebook and getting a feel for my neighborhood. Makes me wish I could draw. “Well, why don’t you start?” No thanks. That’s why photography was invented. Took a ton of pictures today, although all of them have been with my cell phone as I’m leery of waving my G-10 around. Maybe later. I look forward to cracking open my camera like an oyster on the rocks and prizing the treats from within.
Birds sing. Trees sway. I sit, I look, and I write. I think about the places I’ve been and the sights I’ve seen. I think about the here and now. When I get tired of sitting, looking, writing, and thinking, I find my way to Barcade. Fifteen dollars and several stouts later, I feel nicely disjointed from the present tense. It’s a nice place. Well lit, cheap drinks, and two long walls of my childhood friends, although none of the ones I was really good at.
Apparently the world record holder on Donkey Kong hangs out here on the regular. Dr. Hank Chien, 35, is a Queens-based plastic surgeon who, on February 27, after a 2 ½ hour marathon session, racked up a score of 1,061, 700 on the classic arcade game, besting the previous record by 10,000 points. I plan to make it a point to meet the legend.
At this moment, I can’t see very far. I’m butted hard against the plate glass of the Now, with no idea of what the future will bring. This is it. This is as far ahead as I’d planned ahead for. I feel a piece of machinery vibrating somewhere below my feet, and I take another sip of my stout. I should go soon, since I don’t have the funds to make this an all-nighter, but I don’t want to go back to my empty apartment. (No internet after the first few hours. The Wi-fi well’s run dry, boys…) The situation is hopeless, but not serious. At least I have the job needed to generate the dollars to fill my pockets to allow me to sit on this torn-to-shit barstool in a refurbished warehouse space in Brooklyn getting ripped to the tits on powerful stout. And yet, the voice of financial responsibility nags at me from the back of my mind. I really wish it would shut the fuck up. I’ve paid all the bills, I’ve drafted to-do lists, I got a haircut, I set up the utilities, and I’m TCOB as the King used to say. I’m taking care of me and mine. “Would it spoil some vast eternal plan/ if I were a drunken man?”
I wrestle with new ways to describe the silvery ping of quarters striking the polished steel diaphragm of the change machine. They make a scraping rasp as they’re scooped out and forced between the narrow red lips of the nearest game just a few feet away by a barrel-bodied man of an indeterminate age dressed in – wait for it – an ironic t-shirt. (Don’t get me wrong, I really like this bar.)
I can’t wait to get back to some serious writing! I’m way overdue for a maniacal burst of pure genius, a go-to-hell story cranked out in the darkest hours of the night; my eyes redder than the Communist threat and my brain fueled by hot water and xanthine alkaloids (see also: C8H10N402.)
MONDAY – Woke up. Turned on laptop to write while I waited for the movers to show. Found that I had just enough signal strength to post this! It’s not quite done, but it’s better than nothing. Gonna rush up the block and grab an Americano. Can’t wait for my stuff. At last, something to sit down on!
As a child, I believed that the single most infinite and beautiful thing you could possibly do in your entire lifetime was leave this world and set foot on another one. So yeah, I wanted to be an astronaut.
Think of it! Imagine the rush of takeoff, and the lonely thrill of seeing your home world turn silently beneath your boots; half of the people asleep, the other half at war. There are no boundaries visible from space, and it’s instantly evident that we’ve no where else to go. Imagine the strange homecoming sensation of being weightless once again, floating free at the end of a long cable, suspended in nothingness. Imagine looking back at the Earth and realizing you might never see it again, or that you might return one day to find that everyone and everything you knew was long gone. For me, space represented the ultimate experience. Figures in nicely that I’d suck at math, doesn’t it?
We had very little money growing up, so I used to create ships from objects I found lying around the house. If I could work out where the bridge was located on something, I’d figure out what kind of propulsion system it had, and what its purpose was. Was it a freighter? A fighter? Was it intended for short trips or long hauls? Awkward or oversized objects meant the ship was probably constructed off-world, being too weak un-wieldy to withstand take-off or too large to have been constructed from the available resources of just one planet.
A friend of mine once said of me something I still have a hard time putting into words. He said, “You enable our dreams by letting us truly live in the worlds we create.” I don’t think he meant that I was permitting any of my friends to daydream their lives away, or that I was the ringleader of some strange Peter Pan cult where we could collect comics and stay kids forever. Instead, I think he was saying that something in me inspired them to create worlds of their own, and gave them the confidence to have their mail forwarded. I think that’s probably one of the nicest things any has ever said about me. (Other than that crack Dwellephant once made about my being the ‘love child of Fox Mulder and Hunter S. Thompson.’ Now that was nice.)
I’ve guess I’ve always lived in several dimensions; the one we’re in, and another in which I greatly improved my math scores, got selected for the space program and realized a dream from this dimension: that of being the first journalist in space. What?
Seriously. I’ve always felt that they should send writers into space (good ones, and not as a punishment for writing bad endings or killing off your favorite character).
Imagine looking at the Horsehead Nebula with your own two eyes.
Now imagine sitting there with a pen and paper and a hot cup of coffee trying to explain what it looked like to someone who’ll never see it.
I don’t know how to best end this blog, so I will.
