::Slur
The winter days are wan and grey; they fade one into the other, leaching away minutes and hours and weeks. Then I look up and blink the gum from my eyes, struggle out of this icy cocoon long enough to see what a bad diarist I’ve been. I’m naughty. Spank me. There’s a wriggle and a grunt as I squeeze free of the slimy trap and sprawl upon the floor, bare and glistening.
Time and distance and time and distance. I’ve been asleep and dreaming about how different my life was ten years ago. What a different boy I was and how violent my emotions were. I’m angry. Fight me. Somewhere like a distant canyon echo, I revel in being harder to goad into anger, harder to lure into pain. I’m fairly certain I could face my first heartbreak in person and not bat an eye. No shivering, no flinching, no sweat.
The flipside of that is disturbing, though. Everything is distant. Here I am, shivering on the planks and the fire’s not even built. I’ve been dreaming and stupid and faraway, quietly dying a day at a time through my little routine. Rinse, repeat, filth – rinse, repeat, filth. The flipside is that I don’t get excited like I did when I was younger. I remember being thrilled to the core about music, movies, books, friends, driving, restaurants, women, thunderstorms, rituals, owls, the moon, games, flirting; all these things that were parts of me — electric, IMPORTANT parts of me — have unplugged and fallen away to the point where I just find myself not giving a fuck. Not gleeful about much, not amped up about anything. Sure, stuff is cool — my life doesn’t suck — but it doesn’t rock my socks, either.
Does one go with the other? If I fall backward and find that manic joy will I also find the rest of it?
And what’s involved in that, anyway? Do I have to burn down my life and start over? Torch the house and the car and the job and the wife and the cat and the son and the friends and the education and the savings and the morals and the honor and the safety — and go running off to live on a stranger’s couch or camp on a beach or whatever?
I miss a lot of things about my old life. I don’t appreciate what I have as much as I ought. This tiny clan, this outpost of comfort, it’s not enough. The walls are breathing on me and the cocoon is too thick and the orgasms aren’t any good and the food is boring and I’m sick of the bland sameness. I want roaring crowds and sizzling lips. I’m lonely. Seduce me. I want the open road, sunshine, the ocean, new music, a life beyond boredom, more family than I can count on one hand, new friends, new hobbies, six-pack abs and perfect eyesight. I want magic powers and a bullshit detector. A lottery prize and a teleporter. Drugs and hookers and nonsense and comedy and adventure.
Instead I have diapers and snot and the office and cancelled plans and flurries and wind chill and fast food and empty, soulless, lonely screwing. The same music on the radio I’ve been hearing for the last 20 years, almost (and that deserves an entry in itself).
Oh, yeah – that’s why I’ve been Not-Writing. You’ve heard this before.
So where do I go from here? It’s time to grow and I’m not willing to wait for spring. I need that sunlight, that rain, that extra spark, that megajolt, that pounding beat, that ecstatic moan, that trickle of hands through my hair, tangled and wet; fire and lightning and lies and dreams and swordfights. Who’s got some?
How did I miss you sooner? I feel almost cheated, you know. Not to see that we’re both old souls here, but for you to quietly watch, and observe, and I’ve been missing out. Yes, you need to publish something… I find myself not caring about what, and I think I’d be in love with it. It’s not magnetism, it’s the energy in which I find myself being swept up. Fills a few windy holes, at least for awhile.
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I think we have a tendency to miss whatever we’ve left behind. If you dropped your life and start another one, I think you’d find yourself missing the comfort of your earned bed. I’ve been feeling similar, so I’ve been trying to bring back elements that can fit at least somewhat into the square peg of my current life. Game nights at the local game store, cooking weird foods. Going to weird shows.
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At any rate, I am comforted by my routine but I find it pretty butts sometimes.
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I can relate to that in a lot of ways.. minus the diapers and such. Trying to stop thinking that everything is better somewhere else. I really appreciate your honesty.. something I lack when I write. I always look forward to your entries.
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I feel the same way… Ryn- Nice! I say if you have the patience, go for it. At least this once, just to see what it would be like.
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3-4 drinks and I don’t shut up I don’t care what you are trying to watch on TV..
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At some point, parts of this were the !new!. Know what you mean, though. (Find a steepass hill and go tobogganing?) I am beginning to feel six-pack abs are those things that other people have. Like power or significant money or magical abilities. Maybe the abs come with that stuff. Like an If You Order Now type deal.
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If someone needs to appreciate their life … they should have a kid. That life will be remembered as a paradise once it’s gone. I’m half-joking. But truly, finding the balance between what you’ve lost and what you’ve gained is tough. I just try to remember it’s not really lost … it’s just on hiatus. My time isn’t my own right now, for a number of reasons, but one day it will be again. Until then, the victories come when I can find the opportunities for *me* among the daily routine. I hope you’re able to find such victories as well. You’re still you, or else you couldn’t write about it so beautifully.
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I also abhor private notes unless necessary; I must be plain unobservant then, because going back to Avalon’s journal, I remember reading your discourse on her page when the Superbowl happened, but I couldn’t have told you that was you. I was going to ask where to spend my hard-earned cash to own an official copy of Moretti, but I know nothing more about Kickstart than the initial pledgestage. Sounds a bit late for that? I was so wrapped up in reading that by the end, I forgot you’d mentioned at the beginning that it was for a game, whoops. Realized my mistake hours later when I went to re-read it to my husband. As for my writing, I’ve never really hid that it was allegorical, but very few called me out on it. I suppose I’m not surprised everyone else just turned a polite blind eye. My writing has always been for me. That I’ve continued to need to write has had people start nattering at me to consider it seriously. I’m afraid I don’t have a single stitch of writing that wasn’t a shade or specter of myself. My sister gets on my case about that – attaching myself to my characters – but until this point, they’ve always been facets of communication.
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“I want magic powers and a bullshit detector. A lottery prize and a teleporter. Drugs and hookers and nonsense and comedy and adventure. ” Genius.
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ryn: OD, as an anti-spam measure, doesn’t allow new diaries to use links–even linking to other diaries. For the second prompt I’ll be able to do so. And I’ll go back and do it for the first one when I’m able to do so, until then, I suggest using the Bookmarks list on the side which will at least take you to the right diaries–most of the stories are easy to find after that.
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Welp, excitement is where you make it I guess. Ever chuck flaming pumpkins at a bunch of your drunk friends with a catapult as they all run around laughing and yelling in an empty corn field? I’m not sure about excitement but the entertainment factor is through the roof. RYN: Agree – I’m not lovin’ the gmail, BUT, it beats the hell out of losing all your contacts and email histories when your computer decides to funk out on you. I STILL get a bad taste in my mouth remembering the horror!
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I almost wish I could relate. I wish I craved that excitement and felt “alive” when I felt a rush… But with my history, I almost feel fear and anxiety when the adrenaline pumps. Your old was fun and happy times. My old was chaos and pain. I now thrive on the peace I’ve found. Of course I’m past the diapers stage… And I don’t envy that part at all.
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RYN: Never in a million years will that footage find Internet. I’m sorry. It’s hard for me to be an empathetic listener on this one, but I can be sympathetic and hopeful that life doesn’t stay this way for you forever. *
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RYN: I already deleted it. 😛 *
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