The Road (But By Me, Not Cormack McCarthy)

Still, it’s so not easy.

This road. This endless road. Maybe it sounds, or reads, like I’m talking about Life. But I’m talking about getting back to this place. This place of posting. Of writing. Even of reading. To paraphrase Rilke’s “Letter’s to a Young Poet,” a whole constellation of events must go right, for one day to successfully lead to this laptop.

As I’m sure I’ve said before, it didn’t used to be this way. I used to organize my whole day around preparing to get here. Wanting to get here. And if I didn’t get here at least six days a week, the suffering rained down terrible.

There was always the energy to prepare. The focus. The desire.

Now, any little thing can make them cheat, to paraphrase Dickens’s “A Christmas Carol.” Too much sleep. Not enough sleep. Poor dreams. The pressure of work. Relationship issues. Getting unlucky with my reaction to chocolate or caffeine. Writing not seeming like it matters. You name it.

Last night I slept about 15 hours, after my five (usually four) day work week. If I eat early, after getting home from a shift, my brain and body stop working well. I get tired. I don’t feel capable of much. Activities seem silly. And I get sad about all that. That happened last night, and I gave in to the sleep process about 7:30 pm. I woke up about 6:30 am, not feeling great. Still sad and pointless. So I slept again until about 11:30 am. I felt better, but still down. But I felt reasonably certain that, with that much sleep, and the early ticklings of Spring weather outside, that I’d feel quite good once I got going.

And that proved to be the case, luckily. While still in bed, errands, or “accomplishing things,” felt impossible. But I got into the groove. Coffee, chocolate, podcast, cleaning the kitchen, taking out the trash/recycling/bird food pizza crusts, showering, exercising, taking an eBay item I’d sold to the library with packing material so I could print a packing slip and wrap the package and find a way to ship it, discover that Capitol Copy’s flood successor no longer took things for shipping, walking up to where the flood-compensating Postal Service trucks had parked last year, found none, realized there was a blue Postal Service drop box nearby with a scheduled pickup five minutes after I arrived at 2:55, a friendly hello to the postman who did in fact show up, and the second half of a nice walk in the air infused with melted snow. Rhythm had me by the time I got home. The hard-to-recapture outside-work feeling of “getting things done.” So I got on my phone and tried to fix the cell service renewal problem caused by the fact that my local bank, Citizens Bank, had forced a switch from Visa to MasterCard on all its members, without boosting my ego by exempting me from the “everyone” camp. It didn’t work. So I left the house again, walked down to the bank, which I’d passed an hour earlier (and an hour and a half earlier), to see if they knew why both my cell service provider and Amazon seemed to resent that I hadn’t been exempted. Apparently my card was fine, and a few charges, including to Amazon, had gone through, with no record of declined charges. Then, when I pressed, they realized I had an old cell phone number on bank file, and a typo in my email address. After fixing those issues, I went home, got a brief fail-again cell renewal fake out, and then succeeded. So, having continued down the momentum road of problem-fixing success, I checked on my federal tax refund, which hadn’t showed up in three weeks, as the bank had confirmed when I fixed my phone number and email address. After logging in to the IRS website, I discovered that the $1325 had been sent for direct deposit 4 days ago, and was told that if it hadn’t shown up in my account by tomorrow the 27th, to inquire. At least it appeared that creditors had yet to abscond with the rights to my yearly refund.

Oh. Before leaving for the library, I’d also set a lovely new stew simmering. A giant pot full of short grain brown rice, lentils, French lentils, yellow onion, shredded carrot and beet, jalapenos, butter, olive oil, liquid aminos, red pepper flakes, and middle eastern spice mix. It smelled pretty good by the time I got home, and my uncle Mac even ate some. I’d had such a hard time, before, getting him to eat things I made at home.

Then there was a talk about life and relationships. In the usual long timeframe. With the usual one sided speaking result. And the usual approach that didn’t assume that my issue was walking the path rather than knowing the path.

At long last, after eating some salad, some pizza, and some of that stew, I still… actually felt like reading and writing. They aligned, as they rarely do when I don’t force them to.

So I read some of the books I’d started, or listened to. A chapter of Kurt Vonnegut’s “Bluebeard.” A chapter of Markus Zusak’s “The Book Thief,” in an illustrious-but-not-illustrated tenth anniversary hardcover I borrowed from my Mother, and a chapter of Steve Parker’s (not my uncle’s) lovely audio production of Orwell’s all-encompasing “1984.” The second and third in that list both have a lot to say about what’s going on these days, regarding the power of language and the power of authoritarianism. “Bluebeard” may yet get there. It’s the only one of the three that isn’t a reread/relisten, but Vonnegut has very much gotten there in other books, so it wouldn’t surprise me.

And, now nearing midnight, I’m a little ways into at least one day of getting far enough into what has become a kind of scavenger hunt to actually write. As always, I’m remembering how I miss it. How unhealthy I get without it, in strange ways. But also how easy it is, given enough time and distance and Life, to forget.

The getting older thing is part of it too. The sense of purpose. As I’m sure I’ve said before, the older I’ve gotten, the less… just doing it because I enjoy it is a satisfying reason. It needs to mean something more. To help others.

I mean, it’s not that easy. It doesn’t have to be that way, for me to get into it. I’ve been able to get back into videogames, recently. And that has absorbed me a lot. And they don’t “mean anything larger.” Not without writing about them, or having a community of people they connect me to. I tend to say home, on my days off, ignore other duties, choose not to find new artistic projects that connect me to work and make going to work easy even if I pay for them myself. The games are absorbing while I’m in them, but being absorbed in them, the way I’m using them, can’t really build on much else.

There’s still the ever-present problem, here, of “Who’s reading this?” It’s healthier for me, sure, but it’s not doing much, if any, good for other people before my time is up on this crazy space rock. Not like the works of art I commissioned from artists around this crazy space rock on the app Fiverr. Sure I wasn’t making the art myself, and was only really a producer, but all those reinterpretations of the Kamaji furnace room scene from Miyazaki’s film “Spirited Away,” repurposed as a pizza making scene, have brought a hell of a lot more joy, with more instant ease, than almost anything I’ve ever written. It’s phenomenally hard to write in a way that brings joy to others. Consuming writing is time-consuming and pitfall-rife. Looking at framed canvas paintings is not.

And yet, here I am, again, writing, because in so many ways it’s the healthiest thing for me. I can’t hang these blog posts up at Woodbelly Pizza and expect to see children’s eyes light up, or see the grateful parents who don’t have to manage as high a misery index in their children as they did before the lighting. And I can’t talk to customers who know the films, or appreciate the uniqueness of a company that isn’t trying to do the same kind of rural local Vermont art feel thingy that every other business tries. Even if anyone does read this, those people, or that person, won’t be walking into Woodbelly while I’m making them a pepperoni sourdough lunch.

Still, part two of what appears to be a “Dune” film trilogy will be out soon. And it was seeing part one that shook me into that groove a few years ago. Me writing about 30,000 words of a novel in two weeks. That novel I didn’t finish because finally being forced to get a job, a frightening shelf stocking job, sent me spiraling out of control.

I could still finish it. The novel.

I did, with Hanan, watch part one again. Probably for the fifth, or even sixth, time, a few days ago.

I just bought audiobook copies of Dune: Messiah and Children of Dune.

Who knows? Maybe I’ll reclaim the ability to lean in and align the stars myself. Instead of leaning back and waiting for them to align myself. If I can align stars again, I can certainly align planets again, like Second Dune, the desert planet at the watery heart of that incomplete novel.

Wish me luck. Or, rather, hard work. I do, of course believe in luck. And the harder I work, the more of it I find I have.

I’m paraphrasing someone there. {Insert credit here}

xr:d:DAFzpc-IL58:10,j:5007285519824043298,t:23110906

Procrastination is a Monster

Well well well.

If I thought I’d delayed bigly before, cleaved huge gaps between bouts of writing, I clearly had no idea what I was capable of.

Certainly a lot of life has happened. Some good, much bad. The struggle to stay disciplined, goal oriented, and possessive of enough adult and manly traits to be a man in adulthood is not easy. Not easy at all. And like so many humans, I am adept at chucking obstacles up ahead of me, from out of the depths of my imperfect muscles of strength and resilience.

Causing pain in love? Check.

Letting my soul wail into the void with black futility about climate catastrophe and political disaster? Check.

Failing to learn, fully, the life lessons Phil finally, finally fully absorbs by the end of the film “Groundhog Day? Check.

I’ll focus first on that last one.

I’ve got a good job. Satisfying. Helpful. Well paid. I make excellent wood fired sourdough pizza in a lovely town. My coworkers have big hearts. And customers are uncommonly grateful.

Yet I still struggle to get out of bed. Out of dread. To get to work and… not feel like I’m repeating the same day, over and over, without progress. Sometimes when I arrive, if Al hasn’t already connected their phone to the bluetooth and put on the rap music while making dough, I connect my iPad to it and put on the “Groundhog Day.” It fits. The kindness and generosity that Phil feels by the end of the film, when he’s fully made peace, is partially acquired by me. It’s the closest I come to peace. But it still functions as a temporary Band-Aid and not a deep, full cure.

I’m getting there. I’m trying to get there.

Jeez, Yoda. Lay off would ya? I’m only human.

Anyway.

I’m doing the get there. Satisfied, you green backward-talker? Are ya? Huh?

Good.

You’re back on my Christmas card list.

Anyway.

It’s hard to know what will make the final step. For Phil in the film, an integral alloy in the key is romantic love. A deeper peace with love. A non attachment. It’s perhaps a little too Hollywood. In real life, a man doesn’t require the right kind of love for a woman to find peace. And finding peace won’t necessarily get him the one he loves, if he so loves. And hence I apologize, yet again, to…. Well, maybe I shouldn’t use their names. I’m clearly not the best judge of propriety.

Still working to alleviate the alcohol. Made lots of progress on that recently.

And, oddly, psychedelic mushrooms have helped a lot. It had been years since I tried them. A 3 person shared trip, where I was tapped as “guide” but also took some, went awry while I was still at The Serious Place. It started well, but in the adjacent room, one of us started up a constant, wailing, mantra chant that could not be escaped and did not stop. And the good turned bad.

But, prior to that, the “little friends” had consistently given me rare access to the spiritual. To insight. And to a desire to confront rather than avoid what was really going on inside me. And the same thing has happened, this time. Perhaps because of a Google search I did about mushrooms, since then, my Google News Feed just happened to feed me a scientific article about exactly that: psychedelic mushrooms stymying avoidance. And, even better, taking just one seemed immediately to turn my whole being into sacred territory, territory on which the “Dark Vampire Mistress” of alcohol dared not tread, lest it burst into flame, like a vampire in sunlight, or spirits touching flame. A truly wondrous tool, to push off the Mistress’ embrace, before that manifestation of the entropic darkness that wants all life dead either kills me or turns me undead, into a being that is a threat to life.

There is still time. The “little friends” very much wanted me to know how proud they were that I had spent so much time in the embrace of Her and had not yet been defeated. And, beyond that, still showed so much sign of life. What a wondrous signal of the strength deep inside me, available to be found, if only I seek in The Great Way.

“Dear, dear friend,” the sense in me repeated, when I reconnected and it saw the wounds left by the Dark Vampire Mistress. “What have you done to yourself?”

And then? Like in the film “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” by Francis Ford Coppola, which I had inexplicably been obsessing about, it said “And yet we may still save your precious soul!”

And.

I have found myself overpowered with emotion, listening for the first time in years to the soundtrack to the film version of “Little Shop of Horrors.” I have always loved the 4 great Howard Ashman and Alan Menken soundtracks. “Little Shop,” and then that holy trinity of Disney rebirth films: “The Little Mermaid,” “Beauty and the Beast,” and “Aladdin,” (the third truncated in lyricized songs because the lyricist of the team died of AIDS during procution). In relistening to “Little Shop,” after playing the lead character of Seymour 22 years ago when I was too young and inexperienced to fully feel the role? I burst into tears, over and over. Sometimes I even start spontaneously acting out scenes, in addition to singing the songs with an overpowering emotional rawness that could blow audiences away.

In particular, the song “The Meek Shall Inherit” breaks me, in particular particular at that moment when Seymour decides to sell his soul by keeping the evil plant alive, in the false belief that he must, if he is to maintain the money and fame he thinks his beloved requires. The moment he realizes that killing the plant might cost him Audrey, I fall to my knees. I can hardly keep speaking, so shaky I feel. And when he decides to sign the television contract, requiring the plant’s life? I pound the floor and leap to my feet in passionate terror.

Of course Audrey is killed by the plant, in the end. And then Seymour feeds himself to the plant, realizing it is the price of his Devil’s bargain. And so much of all that reminds me of Gary Oldman’s overpowering rage and pain, when his love dies, in “Bram Stoker’s Dracula.” When he stabs the Christian cross, drinks the blood that pours from it, and vows to take out his pain on the entire World.

Devil’s bargain. Faustian bargain. It helps me understand how even good politicians can sell their souls, fool themselves, in the service of a Trumpian authoritarian. Which, by the way, reminds me of the amazing multi part podcast series on The Bulwark by Charlie Sykes called “The Corruption of Lindsey Graham.

As that line in “Chinatown” goes, so well…

“You see Mr. Giddes, most people never have to face the fact that at the right time and the right place they’re capable of anything.”

Indeed.

The extent to which all but the strongest of character are, in truth, armchair warriors living too much in their imagination is almost incomprehensible. Self deception. Cognitive dissonance. Selective blindness. All such marvelous topics. Even to, and about, your truly, no matter how untruthful he may be.

And how deeply, deeply, deeply sorry.

Short Story: A Blue Marble Would Grow Orange on the Journey Toward Red

Tags

Art, Climate Change, Death, Earth, Ecology, Evolution, Father Time, Life, Loneliness, Love, Mother Earth, Phoenix, Planet, Politics, Sleep, Trump, World, Youth

He lies in bed at night, night after night, feeling it.

It.

It is a kind of nameless, faceless, directionless delirium, like the effect of bleeding out. There, in the dark, where neither red nor blue can be seen, an artery seems to have been carved open, as if by the famed “knife edge of survival.” As if Humanity, tired of living and dying by it, had adopted Civilization in order to take it by the hilt and deal a mortal wound to the soul of Mother Earth.

To drink from her, like a vampire.

In bed. In the dark. Alone. As if he’s feeling the pain of the World, but crushed under its weight, unable to do anything to help, so small he feels. It is why, night after night, his mattress sags, needing after mere weeks to be flipped to save his spine.

Not that he feels he has a spine, as he lies in bed sure he is a coward and a shameful failure, under his weighted blanket, sweating, curled into his middle aged fetal position as if to roll downhill, past his peak, on the way to his second childhood ahead of schedule. A snowball gaining white hair and speed, only able to see his youth in his imagination.

Because the hill is in the way. The hill that he is over, though never over it, choked in spirit by an obsession that politics on “The Hill” should be able to DO something… if only it were inhabited by angels.

Not men.

Not the old, out of touch, dried up old men, that he can feel himself becoming. Yet one without power.

Alone.

Bleeding out his anger.

As impotent as a corpse.

–

Tick, tick, tick.

Tock.

Like a second hand on Grandfather Time’s clock. Or sands in that old hourglass.

He knows he will wake up, feeling weak and hopeless. He will look out the window at the colored leaves and the sunshine and the birds and feel as though there is nothing out there for him but failure. No guiding star, only the abundant opportunities to hurt or be hurt. And the Shame Wizard works on him in tandem with the Sandman, casting a dreamland spell that weaves chains like those Ebenezer Scrooge wore in his Dickensian life.

But there will be no three ghosts to rescue this real man, if he is still a man, a human male who feels as if childhood memory and fear of the future decrepitude fuse together to make him. Two halves, without the Ghost of Christmas Present to make the middle.

He thinks this, abstractly, as YouTube drones on with its autoplay, political comedy drifting unwanted into congressional hearings. The voices of others distract him from the voice of his inner self. The external voices of those who somehow seem important blot out the one voice that truly is.

Alone.

In the past. The future. Numb to the present.

“Get up and write something,” the important voice says.

Or tries to say. It cannot be heard over the droning din. The World is too large, spinning too out of control with crazed abandon, to every even dream of taking notice.

No.

The only dreams that matter are in sleep. Where things can seem superhuman. Cut free of mundane Reality. Did that knife edge of survival cut them free? Or did his refusal to realize they, the dreams, were his desperate, soulful subconscious, his higher self, trying with true love to help him. To lift him up. To remind him that he is, in fact, larger than he can imagine. Stronger. Deeper.

Maybe, just maybe, he doesn’t have to feel like… what? Like a martyr, allowing himself to be destroyed by absorbing all the pain of the World, as the cancer of Civilization eats it alive?

No.

The World will be fine. It will be the sixth time it endured a great extinction. In a few million years, the World will be fine. Perhaps better, even, perhaps peopled by something beyond people, something conscious but not so prone to being corrupted by power, to being ruined over and over and over by the most difficult art: that of growing old gracefully.

Lying there in his sinking bed in the dark under his heavy blanket, he feels more and more about how he is a mere passing fad, and only ever even that important in his own mind. He thinks about Evolution. About how life never would have evolved if the current generations were allowed to continue on, to keep power. Youth and innovation would never happen. Would never have happened. And even with the obliterating ego agony of death, the blade in the beating heart of narcissism, the old still clings to life in vile ways. The Skeksis in the darkest crystal.

The darkest….

The dark.

At last he feels himself falling asleep, knowing the distracting drone of comedic voices will prevent his dreams from speaking to him in their most true voice.

Yet he does not care.

He only wants to cease to be awake.

Perhaps, he thinks, to pass some kind of torch. A phoenix, he thinks with a smile. Like a rising Sun.

Ted Cruz Goes After “The Doors”

Tags

Crazy, Donald Trump, Fire, Guns, Lies, Light My Fire, NRA, School Shootings, Swirlies, Ted Cruz, The Doors, The Second Amendment, Uvalde

You know that it would be untrue
You know that I would be a liar
If I was to say to you
World, we couldn’t get more dire

Come on, crazy, light my fire
Come on, crazy, light my fire
Try to set the schools on fire

The time to hesitate is through
No time to wallow in the mire
Try now we can only lose
Guns will now become our funeral pyre

Come on, baby, light my fire
Come on, baby, light my fire
Don’t try to set my guns on fire, nah

The time to hesitate is through
No time to wallow in the mire
Try now we can only lose
Trump’s a sexy real live wire

Come on, baby, light my fire
Come on, baby, light my fire
Just try to set our guns on fire, waaaa

You know that it would be untrue
You know that I would be a liar
If I was to say to you
Swirly Cruz’s head, that crier

Come on, baby, slash my tire
Cancel doors to fix my ire
Don’t you set my guns on fire
Just try to set our guns on fire
You’ll never set our guns on fire
We’d rather set the World on fire

On Empathy, Laughter, and Tears

Tags

Art, Autobiography, Books, Canada, Caribou, Children, Creativity, Death, Drawings, Emotion, Empathy, Eskimos, Farley Mowat, Food, Hunger, Laughter, Letters to a Young Poet, Life, Love, Motherhood, People of the Deer, Plenty, Pulp Fiction, Rainer Maria Rilke, Reading, Rocky, Sadness, Sketches, Sleep, Starvation, Tears, The Arctic, Tobacco, Writing

Not a lot to say, but I wanted to at least check in.

Felt good today. Not tip-top-firing-on-all-cylinders-sharp-as-a-tack like yesterday, but I did feel solid. And I did well with it, in ways. This is the first time at the keyboard, but I did a 13 minute live stream, took my second bike ride on Greg’s kind gift bike (to the store, for cornmeal and short grain brown rice), and then went absolutely to town on my audiovisualbook reading of “People of the Deer.”

And it was lovely. Why? Emotion, linked to empathy. Tears and laughter.

Often, given how I have lived and do live, I feel disconnected from healthy emotions. But, last fall and winter, when I got into that novel, and to film monologue performance, and to audiovisualbook making, I had moments of real empathy and tears of joyful, painful connection to the material.

My main memories of that are some of the letters in Rilke’s “Letters to a Young Poet.” And Captain’ Coons’ speech to a young Butch in “Pulp Fiction.” But I think I touched on this yesterday.

Here’s a link to the chapter that touched me with real sadness.

Why do I bring it up now? Because, in reading a chapter in “People of the Deer” today, a chapter in which a tale is told of a starving family of the Ihalmuit slowly attempt desperate escape, or die, I found myself fighting off tears. It inspired me. I’m not dead yet. And empathy is not lost to me. I well noted that alcohol can damage one’s capacity for empathy for as much as a month after one heavy drinking session. Plus there’s age, and isolation, and hurt. Self preservation. Not wanting to feel. Detachment.

But there it was, boosted as it sometimes is by the best reactions to heart-opening chocolate. And it came again in another chapter, or part of that chapter, even for caribou killed for food by the People. Does, heavy with young.

And it came yet again, but with happy tears, at the end of the chapter I just finished, that I stayed up extra late (again risking body-chemistry-altering dawn) to read. In the chapter, Mowat meets the people in their village, but is left out in a way, because he doesn’t speak the language, and his translator friend is too engrossed to translate. So he begins to draw.

He sketches absently. A caribou. And he gives the caribou a pipe, to smoke tobacco. Then he gives the caribou a self satisfied human leer.

The reaction from the people? Complete and utter hysteria. At first Mowat fears insanity, or seizure.

And here’s a link to that chapter.

The hilarity spreads, as men, women, and children view the sketch. Mowat himself then sees the trifle through their eyes, and breaks into hysterics too. An old woman laughs so hard she falls through the wall of the tent, breaking it, and landing on sharp rocks, somehow unhurt.

In the end, no doubt linked to traumatic knowledge of true starvation we do not know in our world, the arrival of food shifts the mood.

But I still joined in, in my way, though it was almost three quarters of a century ago, in another land, and I only had the written word and my imagination. I fought tears of laughter, much as I’d fought tears of sadness in an earlier chapter.

And I’m not even to the real meat of the book either. Good days ahead.

In the meantime, however, good night for now.

Short Story: A Conversation About Chocolate

Tags

Age, Aid, Babies, Brains, Cats, Charisma, Chocolate, Cocoa, Coffee, Conversation, COVID, Death, Drugs, Exercise, Fat, Heart, Hearts, Help, Kidneys, Laughter, Learning, Loneliness, Men, Milk, Pee, Pets, Phones, Politics, Puberty, School, Short Stories, Sleep, Stimulants, Sugar, Teeth, Women, Work, Youth

“How are you feeling today?”

“Brain’s not working well. Fuzzy. But I’ve got to do this work. Deadline.”

“Aw. I get that.”

“Yeah.”

“Bad sleep?”

“No. I slept great. I always sleep great.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah. It’s something else. Loneliness? Politics? COVID? I don’t know. It seems to happen more and more often.”

“What?”

“Not knowing things.”

“Thinks you used to know?”

“Yeah.”

“How’s your cat doing? I felt bad, after what you said. I’ve had a urinary tract infection before. Never lost all my teeth though. Or gotten old. I mean, you know, really old. I was twelve once. But twelve is different for a cat. Are cat years like dog years? That seven-to-one ratio? If they are, having nine lives might make cats come out just ahead of humans. When I was thirteen-“

“I’m sorry.”

“Huh?”

“I didn’t really hear you. Brain wander or something. Lost in fog. Works on sound too. Not just eyes.”

“Yeah.”

“Was it about Stan?”

“I did ask about Stan, yeah. How’s he feeling?”

“Furry.”

“See? You’re getting sharper already. Just talking to me helps.”

“But he does feel furry. Oh. You meant how does he feel to himself.”

“Yeah.”

“Same old self. Except trouble peeing. Antibiotics in him. I can’t read cat minds.”

“So… you can read people minds?”

“I meant to say I can’t read minds.”

“Yeah.”

“I’m bored. I’m hungry but I don’t know what to eat. I’ve got to finish this assignment. Deadline.”

“Can I help?”

“Just talking helps. To someone. You’re not really here here, but it’s something.”

“You had coffee?”

“Yeah.”

“Didn’t do much to help.”

“No. I was fuzzy before. Now I’m just fuzzy with a rapid heart beat.”

“Want me to suggest it again?”

“Suggest what?”

“Making a chocolate drink. A strong one. Cocoa powder and sugar. Like half a cup of powder. Enough to get the drug effect.”

“I don’t do drugs. Not in my condition.”

“You drink coffee.”

“Smartypants. I mean… uh….”

“You mean a drug you aren’t used to. You eat chocolate bars.”

“As dessert. And I’m already gaining weight.”

“It’s not the chocolate itself that makes people fat. It’s milk chocolate. Lots of fat and sugar. Just use cocoa powder and an artificial sweetener. You’ll never get fat.”

“Didn’t you say chocolate is used as a party drug?”

“It can be like ecstasy.”

“I need to work. I can’t get high. And I have to sleep in ten hours. Maybe on the weekend.”

“Boy. I really can’t advertise, can I?”

“What?”

“Sell myself. Showmanship. An esteemed degree. Millions of social media followers. I don’t have the charisma to get people to try new things. Psychology is so weird.”

“It’s not about it being new.”

“I go through this all the time. And really, people go through this with me. People don’t like to change. They make excuses, and think the real reason they don’t change is that the excuses are the real thing. The problem. But it’s not wanting to change. Not wanting to feel controlled by a new routine. Not wanting to be told what to do. Like an adult version of ‘You’re not the boss of me!’ We just disguise it.”

“That’s not what’s happening.”

“It happens with the simple exercises I do. Keep me young. People always say they will, that they’re different. but then there’s always a reason not to do them. To not change. Fix one reason? Like whack a mole, up pops another. At this point I just laugh.”

“I’m fine with change. Change can be healthy.”

“OK. So you’ll make a chocolate drink? You’ll have a great day of work as a result? You don’t feel tight, like the teacher is coming to the unwanting student? You’re a professor. You know the best stuff happens when the student comes to the teacher. But I don’t have magnetic teacher magic.”

“You’re smart. I can tell.”

“Drink a chocolate drink then. Way better than caffeine. Lasts longer. Healthier.”

“I don’t feel like it right now.”

“Yeah.”

Silence.

“So Stan’s not loving peeing right now.”

“No.”

“Understandable. I loved peeing when I was young. Distance for a wiz was the only thing I could beat my dad at. Then I hit puberty.”

“I wouldn’t know. Women don’t pee for distance.”

“Still pee for kidney health though.”

“Yeah.”

“You know what makes for a great lot of pee?”

“I said I don’t feel like it. Lay off.”

“Did I mention I know some awesome exercises?”

“Oh shut up. I have work to do.”

“Through a fog.”

“That’s life.”

“Yeah.”

Silence.

And then the phone conversation ended.

Thoughts on the Elusive Muse

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1984, Abortion, Art, Audiobooks, Authoritarian, Authoritarianism, Babies, Basic Instinct, Better Off Ted, Blogs, Canada, Cancer, Children, Civilization, Civilization Revolution, Comedy, Control, Creativity, Death, Democracy, Democrats, Desire, Donald Trump, Dory, Drama, Dramatizations, Dune, Earth, Family, Fascism, Fiction, Finding Nemo, Freedom, George Orwell, Government, Governments, Hate, Life, Love, MAGA, Marjorie Taylor Greene, Marriage, Nature, Pain, Passion, People of the Deer, Planet, Politics, Power, Rebellion, Red Mars, Republicans, Rocky, Seinfeld, Sex, Sharon Stone, Slavery, Star Wars, Steve Parker, Ted Cruz, The Arctic, The Muse, The Wild, Thought Crime, Trump, V, V for Vendetta, Videogames, World, Writing, Yoda, YouTube

I’m starting to realize that I link these blog posts in my mind with my YouTube live streams.

Often, the purpose is the same. They’re a kind of free association journaling, in different mediums, stream of consciousness to find out what’s on my mind, what I think about it, and perhaps what others ought to think about it. And while I did say “think,” I also mean to include “feel.” And whatever word best fits there to represent the spiritual state, for a kind of compliment to the “mind, body, soul” trilogy.

When I woke up this morning… well, 4 pm, because I was up until 6 am trying to be productive amidst an entirely trilogy-mediocre day… I could tell it was again one of those promising days. Yes, as always I just wanted to stay in bed. And yes, as always I wanted to go back to sleep and dream forever. But I sensed I’d slept well, and felt more or less at peace. So it wasn’t a surprise when, after again opting not to use that feeling “au natural,” as in without chocolate and caffeine, I started to feel great. At first I worried the three bottles, two of chocolate powder with golden flax seed meal and chia seeds and monk fruit sweetener, and one with “naked” yerba mate, were backfiring in my digestive tract. That often happens. I’ve learned that if I feel really good, it’s very risky to use them to feel even better.

But today it went swimmingly. My body and mind and soul were like Dory in “Finding Nemo,” swimmingly forgetting those past misfires.

It started with a conversation with my uncle downstairs. Great chat. My mind and words were firing on all cylinders. Good insight, good listening, good connections, good humor, good connection.

I started by going upstairs and doing a live stream. 25 minutes.

Hmmmmm…

I often forget I can embed YouTube videos here, choosing to stick with pics. But let me see if I can do that, with the video YouTube created and saved of my stream.

Lovely.

That wasn’t so bad. Not hard at all. I’ll try not to Dory the experience.

Anlyway.

After that, I read chapter two of “People of the Deer,” and it was a very engaged reading. Took me 3 clips, to keep to the 15 minute max that the website runway.com limits one to, unpaid, for altering video backgrounds. I’m realizing it’s tricky to successfully green screen myself there, if I move much, and bring items in and out of the screen, like my microphone and my Kindle. Parts of the video over the background flicker in and out of existence. It doesn’t help if anything matches the color of my chair too close, like my hair can in certain light, or parts of my mic, or the wrong shirt. Still, great book, inspiring material, and poetic descriptions.

Let’s embed that too. Self promotion is wealth promotion.

Then I read, I mean listened to, another chapter 6 I believe, of Steve Parker’s (not my uncle: Dory that association, brain) marvelous audiovideobook production of Orwell’s “1984.”

It’s the chapter on sex. How desire is thought crime. How the party wishes to kill (or, failing that, corrupt) the sex desire. To drown it, as if in a fetid pool. To turn it into a cold, wet, “duty to the party.” Making a baby. Winston’s horrible description of his otherwise lovely wife, from whom he parted when they failed in their short marriage to “make a baby,” is striking. Not a thought in her head that wasn’t a slogan. Hated sex. Seemed somehow to be pushing him away from her with all her strength, even as she was embracing him.

It’s all told as a journal entry, and his thoughts while journaling. A terrible crime, keeping a diary. And the description of his marriage is sort of the deeper memory. The primary memory he’s working to convey is finding a prostitute among the prols. A woman covered in makeup, who seems young from the street, but who proves old and toothless once he’s inside her flat.

He speaks about wanting a real love affair. Even once. But knowing it’s impossible.

Foreshadowing, that.

Anyway, sexuality and desire is definitely linked to productivity, art, and the Muse. The muse is usually portrayed as a lovely woman. Fickle, yes, but lovely. I vaguely recall the Albert Brooks comedy called “The Muse,” where he meets a literal muse, and tries to figure her out, and her benefits. If memory serves, Sharon Stone played the Muse, not long after her star-making turn in “Basic Instinct.” The Muse, it could be said, is often tantalizingly uncrossing her legs for aroused artists, even as they interrogate her in a police station.

Sexuality….

There’s a great line I always remember from “People of the Deer,” in that chapter 2 I posted my video for. Where Mowat describes the awakening Arctic, in Spring, like… the breath of a strong woman, in the grip of passion.

Surely there’s a hatred of the wild in Fascism. In all its senses.

But it also, that chapter 6, made me think of what I’ve learned about how sexuality is manipulated for gain of power in authoritarian regimes, and religions. The abortion debacle Republicans seem so anxious to create (because chaos is opportunity for evil) is a great example. But also how young men are encouraged to be celibate. To not masturbate. And also… the grievance and victimhood rage of incels, very much like some of Winston’s rage earlier in “1984,” about the young lovely woman he mistakenly thinks is another sex-hating woman he could never have. The woman who, soon after, pays off chapter 6’s foreshadowing.

Let’s add in a link to the Orwell dramatization too. It deserves attention.

Just recently, in The Atlantic magazine I believe, I saw an article about female incels. About that becoming a thing. But seemingly with very different aims than male incels. I didn’t read the whole article, but perhaps I should.

Let me see if I can find a link to that, and embed it, too.

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2022/05/femcel-meaning-female-incel-reddit/629836/

The Atlantic seems to have a pay wall, but only after you’ve read a few teaser articles. I don’t see any photo automatically inserted here, as a thumbnail is included for YouTube videos, but if you click on it, hopefully it works.

Power. Control. Pain.

Some of the main traits of authoritarians. And real desire not directed at the leader or his regime is… perhaps a reminder of the lack of complete control they crave. A narcissistic reminder that those humans are NOT completely subservient, like hands and feet.

Like, as I’ve said, rebellious nations and cities in the videogame “Civilization Revolution,” where the small authoritarian slice of my soul comes out to play.

Those passionate enemy cities. Their… desire to not be owned by me. Their love of fighting back, when I try to conquer them. To take them into my own being, like a tumor. Like Humanity’s civilizational march across the surface of the Earth, questing in its subconscious to turn every ounce of biomass on the planet into human protoplasm.

“How DARE you disobey me!”

Sigh….

It’s odd, examining sexuality in me, these last few years. To co opt the IRA Ireland/England term, since “The Troubles.” In many ways it seems to be in remission. Perhaps an expression of freedom, power, and self love that has soured in a way. I almost never feel anything resembling sexuality. It’s as if both of my heads are frightened to stick their respective necks out.

Watched a few episodes of the great, little known sitcom “Better Off Ted” earlier. 2 short seasons, about a company hilariously making awful business decisions, and the employed humans involved. Anyway, a middle aged man showed up who’d lost a promotion, years ago, to the vile but lovely boss Veronica. A broken man, housed in the basement. After failing to get the promotion, he proved to be too much orchid and too little dandelion. Lost his house, wife, etc. Too gentle a soul. I found it a little frightening. In a way, it makes me want to watch “Rocky” again. And that, in its turn, makes me wonder if THIS will be the time I watch it when my soul says, at long last, “no” to my life’s manly potential.

Careful Amos. Don’t do it. Don’t fall into that trap. Don’t give up. Don’t stay down.

Italics.

My inner monologue.

What was that old mantra I used sometimes. Still do. “My name is Amos Stone Parker, and I am totally fucking awesome.” Nice rhythm. Syllable balance. Another thing I should do, or do not. For there is, indeed, no “try.”

Screw or screw not. There is no sigh. Something Winston might say.

On another note, I still find myself procrastinating in an albeit productive way on fully getting back into the novel. I could finish it in two weeks, at the old pace from late last year. For some reason I find it a little intimidating. I can only avoid feeling guilty by being super productive on the other creative tasks, which in some ways feel more fan and fiscally promising. The YouTube things.

Perhaps I should watch “Dune” again. Or leap back into “Red Mars.” I imagine it would help.

I certainly do find this actual writing more satisfying. More like I’ve “done something.” Like I’m “doing something. The YouTube videos? The sense of creative productivity is muted. I don’t feel as active. And of course the leg work of video production isn’t a satisfying exercise and venting of raw creative energy the way typing is. This sort of journaling, too, though the aim is the same, feels meatier than the live streams.

I wonder if my spirit would do well with composing stories live, on a live stream? Or if I should read my own stories, books, on YouTube. I’ve often been told I should read my writing aloud, my fiction writing not this “my voice” journaling blog stuff, to better “hear” it. I’ve been too stubborn though. YouTube may help. I’ll feel like I’m accomplishing more, even if it’s a live read where I learn, in real time, for myself and an audience, what I did in silent typing that clangs when spoken or when even read by another, who has to hear it more real and unbuffed in their head than I do or even can.

More food for thought.

A last thought on the Muse? Perhaps what it’s like to be a politician. Dependent on the fickle, powerful nature of one’s voters. The voters one may learn to hate. Who can destroy one’s career, just as a silent muse can. Is Marjorie Taylor Greene pleading with a muse when she trolls for social media donations? Is Ted Cruz? Is Donald Trump?

In my conversation with my uncle Mac today, It occurred to me to quote the film version of “V for Vendetta.” I can’t remember if the line was in the famous graphic novel too, but the line was “People shouldn’t be afraid of their governments. Governments should be afraid of their people.” True, in a way. But it implies voters are smart, well informed, and moral. That’s very much not the case with Republican MAGA voters now, who want their leaders to be professional wrestlers. If the people are awful, being scared of them will make governments awful. Governments, sometimes, need the courage to stand up to their voters, if their voters want to break the law and destroy Democracy. If they’ve been lied to.

The character V, in that tale that like “1984” used to seem outdated with fear of Fascism, is very poetic. Somehow, his live, his passionate rebellious life, fills him to the brim with the muse. He has desire for truth, justice, and the (insert country here) way.

Fear is the mind killer. That’s “Dune.” Fear can cripple one’s relationship to the Muse too. To life. And, really, the Muse is an extension of Life truly lived.

Fear makes creative desire shrivel and retreat. Like a heart under Fascism.

Or a penis in icy water.

Cue the George Costanza “Seinfeld” reference:

Thoughts, Feelings (and Prayers) on the Uvalde Elementary School Shooting in Texas

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Abortion, America, Benito Mussolini, Beto O'Rourke, Breaking Bad, Conservatives, Cyanide, Daniel Day Lewis, Death, Democrats, Disney, Donald Trump, Eggs, Elementary School, Evil, Fascism, Fascist, Good, Greg Abbot, Guns, Italy, Liberals, Life, Mussolini, Nazi Germany, Pasta, Pictures, Political, Politics, Protest, Republicans, Ricin, Russia, School Shootings, Schools, Second Amendment, Ted Cruz, Texas, The Second Amendment, The United States, The United States of America, Trump, Ukraine, Uvalde, War is Hell

Well, I figured it out.

The “Where’s the plus sign to insert a pic?” problem.

Turns out it tells me right when I click on a field, the place that normally houses a new paragraph.

It flat out tells me to either start typing, or press the / key to insert something. Color me sheepish. Which I guess is off white? How very, very, very like a man to refuse to read the instructions. And here I am, there I was, thinking I was special.

Anyway.

Sigh….

Another, horrible, tragic, infuriating school shooting. And more frightened/angry Republicans refusing to cut in on anyone’s misunderstood Second Amendment rights. You can’t stop bad people from getting guns, they say. All you can do is turn schools into maximum security facilities. Does that mean because you can’t stop women from having abortions if they need one, no sense in taking away men’s penises, you just need to make the woman’s body a police state. Maybe something like that is their twisted logic.

My main thoughts on it today came during a listen to the new Pod Save America podcast. They are smart. They know about the proto-Fascist Republican party. But they don’t seem to understand fully how Fascists take power.

Look at Mussolini. Pasta Hitler, some say. Intentionally creating crime and chaos in the streets so the public would beg them, beg them I say, to take police control and even declare martial law. Which Mussolini then used the powers of to destroy Democracy. You could see Trump trying for something similar, loving the opportunity for societal division and personal advancement created by chaos. Whether he was coming up with it on his own, listening to others who knew, or directly imitating Mussolini, it amounted to the same thing.

But the hosts of the podcast just kept saying they couldn’t understand it. Even though they know power corrupts. Even though they know that on some level the Republicans have declared war on the opposition, when in war previously evil acts become good and even patriotic.

A few children have to die because Americans will need their guns to stop the liberals from destroying America? Well, if you want to make an omelette you have to break some eggs.

In war, soldiers die. It’s the cost of doing business. And Republicans are pro business.

Unless businesses disagree with them.

Read: Disney.

Whatever it takes to win, in War, is justified to some. To some there are no war crimes. It’s like that line I love about Trump, and corruption. When losing becomes a sin, cheating becomes a virtue. And Republicans seem to think Jesus is on their side, so they MUST be about virtue.

It reminds me of what the Russians are doing in Ukraine. Destroying towns in order to save them.

I’ve seen for ages that some would destroy Democracy because they feel it must be done to save America. Power corrupts. This can happen in America. Does happen. We are not a nation of angels, as the Republican minority constantly points out. Crime, corruption, elites… but then out of the other sides of their mouth they spout how America is the greatest nation in the World, with more freedom and opportunity and safety than any other nation. Ted Cruz is of course the prime mouthpiece.

I contemplated again today, somehow finding some cyanide, attaching a small needle to my hand dipped in it, and then going to DC to slap Cruz on the back. Perhaps something slower, so I can escape. Something less traceable. Like Ricin. Oh “Breaking Bad,” you bad influence.

Sigh….

It’s so hard to maintain rage. It’s so easy to become numb. Learned helplessness. The old repeating story. I think Republicans count on it. If people just get used to what they need for power, the grifting, the lies, the lawbreaking, then they will be safe. Not the people: the bad actors.

Bad actors. As if they’re pretending, like Daniel Day Lewis. Ugh.

It was so sad the way Texas Republicans treated Beto O’Rourke yesterday, when he spoke up at that conference. Getting angry. Pushing back. He was doing it as a father, but because he’s also a politician, they tried to nail him for rudeness and impropriety. Faux pas. No other father speaking up like that would’ve been shouted down. But anytime anyone disagrees with Republicans, they write it off as being political. Of course they can be political.

Assault weapon bans? Gun buy back programs? Background checks? They DO work in other nations. America doesn’t have to put up with this, making excuses about mental health or more good people needing guns or arming teachers. But the very idea that America might have something to learn from “lesser nations” makes some Americans SO FUCKING MAD.

And it’s SO FUCKING CHILDISH.

Americans who think they’re being strong and patriotic and freedom-loving so often just seem like five year olds throwing a tantrum because Mommy wouldn’t just hand them the whole cookie jar before dinner. I mean… isn’t this a free country? What is this, Cookzie Germany?

Learned helplessness. Maintaining rage. Isolation.

My emotions just rarely function the way I want them to. The way I need them to. The way the World wants them to.

And, maybe, the way the REAL Jesus hopes they will.

They should… maybe read the instructions?

The Consequences of Failure. And Success.

Tags

A Sand County Almanac, Alcohol, All Caps, Anna Karenina, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Blogging, Capital Letters, Capitol, Cellar Door, Christ, Christianity, Cults, Dawn, Death, Dinner, Donald Trump, Donnie Darko, Empathy, ER, Evolution, Failure, Farley Mowat, Food, Hades, Jake Lloyd, Johnny Depp, Life, Life of Pi, Mario, Mars, Money, Mushrooms, Mythology, People of the Deer, Politics, Power, Religion, Rudeness, Star Wars, Success, Super Mario Brothers, The Death of Ivan Ilyich, The Phantom Menace, Tolstoy, Trump, Underworld, War and Peace, Wealth

I dunno what’s up, but since I got back into blogging this last month, WordPress has trouble showing the plus sign that lets me put a photo in here.

Odd opening paragraph, eh? Just a glimpse behind the curtain. In the meantime, I’ll keep aimlessly zooming my mouse cursor around, clicking in the field, on the one below, and any old place, trying to figure out the plus-sized pattern. If I’m lucky I’ll find the cause of my non-functional caps lock button too. At least it’s broken in the “off” position. Wouldn’t do to have everyone, all the millions of you, feeling like I’m rudely screaming at you. And leaving me to either be honest, or blame (half truthfully), poor eyesight, like in that meme I saw the other day, which was one of those “screen shots of a text interchange” ones.

Anyway.

Failure. Success. Consequences.

Hold on….

That’s better.

I realized I had the image. Turns out I hadn’t screen shotted it, but I had saved the article, a Bored Panda article about funny old person things or something. I refuse to open my phone to confirm the title, after having to pick up my phone to find the article, screenshot #1, text it to myself using Messenger, download it to my laptop, and then insert it because a simple laptop-based Google search of course wouldn’t work. No sir. Consequences of failure, right there. Still checking on success.

So.

After finishing Ronald Blythe’s lovely 34 page introduction to the lovelier (in a dark way) 100 page Tolstoy short novella/long short story “The Death of Ivan Ilyich,” and an almost 20 minute YouTube live stream, I did a quick ten minute “break” (as in “breaking my rhythm”) centered on my Google News Feed. I saw an interesting article, which at first looked possibly preachy, but proved worthwhile. Something about all Star Wars fans owing Jake Lloyd an apology.

If you don’t remember the name, he played “little kid” Anakin Skywalker in “Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace,” back in 1999. The movie got a lot of derision, eventually, after initial fan desperation to love it. The guy who played Jar Jar Binks (fun fact: the cast was sure that character would be the next big thing, apparently) contemplated suicide. But Lloyd got it hardest. Internet destruction. He quit acting two years later, in 2001, age 12, because of the teasing in school. He’d been chosen for his energy, by Lucas, after some appearances in the TV show “ER,” and in the Ah-nuld Christmas flick “Jingle All the Way.” Merry Christmas, Fox News. Yippee!

After that? Lloyd couldn’t stand being in front of the camera. He went to film school, but dropped out after a semester. Bouts of mental illness. Chased by the cops once, crashing his car into a tree. His sister, also in Episode One, died mysteriously in her sleep. He was eventually diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia.

Everyone assumes fame and fortune will make them happy. Alas, even beloved film actors frequently have problems. Witness Johnny Depp, alcohol et al. I could list more, for days.

Then add in famous musicians.

Leo Tolstoy? Rich, famous, vigorous, after publishing “War and Peace.” Was he happy? Nope. Crippled by a fear of Death. Wildly varying reactions to the deaths of his children. Even rich people couldn’t prevent the deaths of children, “back in the day.” The chapter in Robert Greene’s “The Laws of Human Nature” on romantic narcissism, or the section on narcissism about that strain, took Tolstoy and his wife as its historical example. As a huge fan of “Anna Karenina” (can you believe I haven’t read “War and Peace”?), that was a shock. Such creative empathy combined with a variant of a condition I associate with a lack of empathy? It deserves its own blog post.

Success. Failure. Life. Death. Wealth. Poverty.

It’s often seemed clear to me why human beings have such a clear hard wiring for religion. Or rather, religious thinking, as that wiring is currently clearly at work in Trump supporters even though he’s not a god. Never mind THE (had to use the shift key for those caps) God. Cult behavior. The desire for a strong man. A strongman. Like, as in, a god. And not the sissy female type of god. The manly macho Mars-y type.

How on Earth, or Mars, or Mount Olympus, could Humanity, once sentience and awareness of Death was “achieved,” maintain sanity? Without a hard wiring for the religious inclination, the meaning and structure in this mortal coil of a World, wouldn’t everyone just snuff themselves?

Belonging to just a community of humans, with love and companionship, is one thing. But that community being part of a larger story, with meaning, with connections to the Before and the After, is huge. One reason I have trouble is that I haven’t managed to access my religious hard wiring. Rationality gets in the way. Objectively I can believe in a kind of Animism, where “the gods of this place” live and carry on. A belief in the larger story of Evolution. Some kind of spiritual afterlife or recycling. But it doesn’t grab my emotions. Maybe I need to do more mushrooms. Have to find them first.

Hook me up, Princess Toadstool? I’m good for it. I swear.

Tolstoy organized his struggles around Christianity. Which, to me, is a messed up “taker” religion. Out of synch with natural reality, though some of its core is good. The Bible makes it a profoundly easy religion to mess up though. Not that there aren’t messed up followers of the Koran too. That religious hard wiring makes for the taking of meaning to the extremes very easy.

Jake Lloyd? The hard wiring of religion can weave into fame and fortune too. It all can have a godly feel. A superhuman, eternal vibe. And creators like George Lucas can seem like deities. Accent on the SEEM? How unseemly.

Anyway.

My success? My failure?

It’s a struggle. The part of me that imagines I’d find meaning even if I were “a successful writer” is pretty weak. Only the briefest, early portion of my writing life, in 2007-2008, had much of a hint of writing for that purpose. Eventually, very soon really, it just became about enjoying the art. For me.

It’ll really take… something… to alter that. Feels far off. But things merely on the other side of a closed door can seem not just far off but frankly non-existent. So I keep telling myself to grab for the knob. Incidentally? It was a knob of some kind that Ivan Ilyich fell and banged his side into, that caused his mysterious illness and his early, hard confrontation with the mysterious of death. Doorways indeed.

Cellar door.

Always makes me think of the great film “Donnie Darko.” Just today I saw it referenced in a list of 20 no-longer-common tropes in fiction. It was used as the exception that proves the rule, for the out-of-favor trope of name alliteration. Like Peter Parker in Spider Man/Spider-Man. Mad dash for poetry.

In “Donnie Darko,” two teachers are talking. I think that’s the scene. Anyway, one teacher says he heard that some esteemed scholar, or trustworthy artist, had claimed “cellar door” was the most beautiful phrase in the English language. Or word pair. Or something. The subtle thoughts that cellars, beneath where we live, is surely a part of that. Surely related to Life and Death. I imagine Mars dueling with Pluto behind and under a cellar door. Pluto is the Roman Hades. Odd the Roman name is the better known for one, and the Greek for the other. That’s success and failure for you right there. And all empires, no matter how glorious, die in the end.

My mind feels spry tonight. It’s 3 am. Nice timing, as always. The underworld of sleep awaits me, and my deep cut about that is… Pluto would let me escape with my love if only I could promise, on my way out to never look back. Unlike in mythology, I get infinite chances. But very much like the mythology, I can’t help it. Sometimes I think only a lobotomy, targeting the right or wrong sort of memories, could save me. Could get me out of the underworld with my love with ease.

Speaking of success and failure, I’ve committed to a nice risk. A gamble. On YouTube, in making my own audiobooks, with “Letters to a Young Poet,” “The Life of Pi,” and “A Sand County Almanac,” I’ve been very safe and conventional. I’ve tried to read normally. Consistently and perfectly. But I think, while it may not be to everyone’s liking, a more “real” and interactive reading would be exciting. Something unique. Where I acknowledge mistakes. Try reading passages a different way. Stop to give thoughts and feelings. It could fail. But it could also succeed. And Farley Mowat’s “People of the Deer” is my candidate.

And, of course, I’ll aspire to get back to the novel too. Might need to watch “Dune” again, to boost me. And dive back into “Red Mars.” The big, creative projects feel the most satisfying. Where the most chances happen. The most risks.

Success and failure.

I should really be in bed by 5 am. If I let too much dawn encroach, my body won’t sleep as well. And then tomorrow will be a work-damaged deathly suffering.

Less than two hours for work… and food… and…

…Life.

Short Story: Hounded by Truth

Tags

Adventure, America, Applause, Chase, Cockroaches, Democracy, Democrats, Donald Trump, Entertainment, Exit, Facts, Fascism, Free Press, Gold, Insects, Justice, Mazes, Money, News, Power, Presidents, Press, Pursuit, Reality, Republicans, Rock, Snakes, Television, United States, Vermin

“I want what I want, and I deserve what I want.”

So he said to himself, lurking in the darkness, seeking after the treasure that evil forces would stop him from acquiring, if they discovered him. He sweat from anxiety, exertion, and something more. Something noble and ignoble at once. The air in the shadowed maze smelled dank. Musty. But the ill odors seemed only like a shield, a wall blocking his acquisitions. His profit.

“Where is it?” he whispered to himself, sniffing the air, his pupils so dilated in the darkness that they held no more iris than a northern garden in midwinter.

To one side, his left not his right, his hand felt cold, rough stone mortared together without artistry. Bumps and cracks and tiny creatures avoided his touch. They avoided his touch they way he avoided what pursued him, the hundreds or thousands or millions of vermin that hunted him down with eagle eyes and unjust justice in their hearts.

“How DARE you…” he muttered at them, though he felt he had lost them at the last hard, sharp turn.

Those rats. Those cockroaches. Those dirty blades of fake news. All of them. So dishonest in their honesty. Reality was a place of light. Of sunshine. And he had long ago grown disaffected with that disinfection. It was not right. It was wrong. It was sad. It was nasty.

“…disobey,” he finished muttering.

Bright, high, fact checked vocalizations reached him. They’d bounced off the rough hewn walls. He could not make out the words. But it did not matter because they were wrong merely because they opposed him. Pursued in order to oppose.

The adventure. The evasion of combat. The winning.

That’s what came of him working the maze. It was entertaining. Those who watched him elude, on television in infrared, delighted in his sleights of hand and foot and sight. He was down deep, in a state of rebellion. David, forever slaying Goliath. And facts would only slay the fable.

“He’s going to find the treasure for us!” he knew they were saying, as they watched him.

The rubes. The gullible, fucking rubes.

No.

Tools. Hands and feet. Extensions of himself. The ratings would keep the vermin away. Everyone would stop watching if he were caught. And the money, the power, would stop flowing.

No.

“Which way?” he said, his feet dragging in the mucky dirt.

He hit a wall. Was the gold on the other side of it? His hands, his own hands, pressed against the frigid, slippery stone. Centipedes raced from his fingers. He looked up, wondering if he could climb. The bright, shining gold heavy and light enough to fill the black hole of his soul was over there. He could smell it. It smelled like… victory.

SHUFFLESCUFFLESCRATCHSNATCH

He could hear his pursuers. Them and their facts. Their truth. Their evil.

Truth was what HE said it was! The nasty little traitors did NOT know! There WAS no History. There was no fact. There was no… distraction.

From behind, he thought he heard a few actual words.

“Fascism!”

No, he thought. They’d said “fact jizum.” He giggled.

To his left.

A crack in the wall.

Just as the insects approached the corner behind.

He slipped through. Out of sight. And a long, dank hallway stretched before him, seemingly lit with a glittering of faint golden light. He ran, as best he could, panting and hungry. He felt he had escaped the eyes of his audience, and that they’d cheered because he’d escaped his failing pursuers, not wailing that they had escaped him.

A door. A green and gold door, like dead presidents and mold and his hair. A doorknob, slippery like the stone, a red snake wrapped around its base.

“Fuck outta here!” he said, kicking up and crushing the snake.

It fell, in two pieces, he ground his boot heel into its face, treading on it. And he used his long red tie, like a cloth snake, to turn the knob.

Inside, bright clean white light.

One way glass. An audience: his audience, watching his pursuers stuck in the maze with their microphones and folding papers and glass morals. Then, to the left not the right of the glass, piles and piles and piles of money and gold and raw, throbbing power, as if he were in the cloak room his audience had left its precious possessions in. For safekeeping.

And a great golden wheelbarrow. And his children. And an exit door, four red capital letters spelling escape up high.

And as he wheeled everything out, he left the audience cheering at the wrong show.