Thoughts on writing, living, and believing…
If you haven’t already, make sure you take some time to head down to your local polling place to vote. It doesn’t take long and it’s the one freedom we enjoy that allows average Jane’s and Joe’s to make a difference.
Yes you. YOU make a difference.
Besides, if you don’t vote, you don’t get to bitch later.
Seems like Chicago—hell, the whole state of Illinois—is a gathering place for all the world’s nutjobs. This Sunday, Nick Wallenda of the famous family of “daredevils,” will walk a tightrope strung between the Marina Towers on the Chicago River.
Anyone who’s ever walked downtown this time of year knows how hard the wind blows off the lake. Let’s hope that one man’s lack of good judgement and common sense doesn’t end in some terrible horror show on the Sunday night news.
Anyhoo, being October 31st, I offer you some musical selections to get you through all those Kit-Kat bars you’ll be scarfing in between trick-or-treaters. C’mon, admit it: you eat more candy than the kids!
What am I supposed to do with this place?
Oh, I could try to sell it. List it with a realtor, but I suspect I could go years without so much as a low-ball offer.
I give up. Let it rot!
I hate every warped, weathered board. Let it topple in on itself and sink into the earth where it stands. Let it turn to dust among the rubble of its foundation stones, never more to blot the view of the world beyond with its desperate neediness.
My god, it stinks! Mildew, rust, fungus, and rotting leaves turned black with their dissolution adding to the foul perfume of death!
[Well now, that was a pretty shade of purple prose now wasn’t it? My editor would roll her eyes clean out of her head over that sentence. Well, I get like that when I’m emotional.]
Continue reading “The Thin Place – Part II”
So I finish my egg drop soup and reach for the non-fortune, fortune cookie they always give you to see what inane drivel it contains.
I crack it open and…nothing.
What does this mean? Should I be worried?
Given the time of year, I was immediately reminded of poor Charlie Brown trick-or-treating with the gang and then comparing the “take” afterward.
At least he got a rock!
Heaven and earth are only three feet apart, but in the thin places, the distance is even smaller.
~Old Celtic saying.
Time leaves its mark. Grey hair, lines in the face, muscles that were once lithe and supple, begin to sag and atrophy. The same thing happens to a soul. Heartache, disappointments, anger, endless waiting; they all leave a wrinkle, a furrow, a scar.
Buildings too, bereft of proper care end up derelict and despondent in a material sort of way. Eaves sag, stone crumbles. A roof which once laughed at the rain, and sighed under heavy blankets of snow, now lies tattered, sagging, and full of holes. The whole structure no longer dares the elements, but sulks in shabby shame, apathetic, no longer seeking to shelter but to be sheltered. So it was that I first saw Forty Oaks Farm. A mostly overgrown, ramshackle place on the edge of a hardwood forest.
It belonged to my wife’s family for generations. She grew up there with her older brother and two sisters. When her father died, her mother stayed on bravely—or foolishly depending on who you ask—until she too, passed on. The property fell to my wife as the only heir who wanted anything to do with the place, her siblings wisely having no use for Forty Oaks and the money pit it had become.
I’ll never forget when she told me that the old farm was now ours. “Great,” I remember saying halfheartedly, mostly to humor her. I had never seen the place myself, apart from pictures, but in my mind, I envisioned endless lost weekends and bushels of money tossed away just to make the place habitable again. You know, sometimes a gift isn’t really much of a gift after all. But she was so damned excited about it! She’d go on and on about all the plans she had for it; how we would make it our own. For her sake I played along.
Then came her illness.
Continue reading “The Thin Place – Part I”
I mean envy, jealousy, feelings of bitterness over something someone else has or does. Being a writer, I fight with this little beast regularly, as in:
“Oh, you just got your book of vampire erotica published? Good for you!”
Followed by a sotto voce, “You miserable, talentless hack!”
And I hate myself for it.
As if that were not bad enough, along with being a writer—perhaps because of it—I’m also a deadbeat, which means I listen to a lot of sports radio throughout a typical day. The only upside to this habit is that it gives me plenty of opportunity to peer beneath the nasty under-beerbelly of the human condition.
Well lemme tell you: ’round these parts, there’s been an explosion of green-eyed monsterism on display lately.
Continue reading “The Green-Eyed Monster”
I’ve been here for hours.
My head feels stuffed like the arms of my chair.
Puffy and tightly bound.
Nothing’s getting in. Nothing’s getting out.
Thinking is an effort.
Hell, everything’s an effort.
Even writing.
I don’t mean building stories out of connected ideas.
Carefully constructing sentences with proper syntax, grammar and spelling,
Or selecting words that best express and enfold layers of meaning.
No, I mean the physical act of writing.
Making the pen form letters,
By moving my hand with some semblance of coordination.
Scribbling something legible, rather than lopsided, blue blobs.
My cat sits at my feet, watching with a puzzled expression.
Does she sense my frustration?
Cats don’t get frustrated so how could she sense it in me?
She meows loudly.
“C’mon!” she cries, “You’re not doing anything productive! Feed me!”
I ignore her, trying to concentrate.
Her meows become increasingly strident,
But I must carry on. I must make the effort.
Who is it that said that eighty percent of life is just showing up?
Well “showing up” is making my head hurt.
It’s hard to breathe.
Owww!
To add injury to her many insults, she just bit me.
All right. Fine. I’ll feed you.
Then at least one of us will be happy.
Never mind writing, showing up is hard!
Same time tomorrow, then?
A little palate-cleanser—ahem—to take our minds off the weightier things in life. Here’s a bunch of kids who have lunch at the swankiest place in New York.
Keep your eye on the blonde boy in the blazer and striped shirt…
I will always be grateful to my dear old dad for making me try things when I was growing up. His rules were simple: Try it. If you don’t like it, don’t eat it. But try it.
h/t Ace
