Upstream

My lovely wife is visiting folks in Arizona this week, leaving me with the cats. All in all, I'm doing okay, except it's too quiet and I'm bored and I'm not getting that much writing done. The latter bothers me the most. I have my mind on rewriting, but my heart's not into much of anything at this point, and I'm wondering why. I know I'm in a rut here, feeling too numb by everything going on. Maybe I'm overloaded and I feel paralyzed, crippled by trying to hone the damn novel to make it shine. Maybe I'm having some lingering ennui from the appearance that the powers-that-be are stil the same narrow-minded fascist warmongers and nothing anyone seems to do will stop from them being the aforementioned narrow-minded fascist warmongers. The lefty blogs, as Peter Daou points out, are either left out of the equation by politicans or muffled by a monolithic media keen on pumping out status quo-y bon mots (not to mention that an epiphany I've had recently about poli blogs, especially lefty ones: for the most part, they've botched the notion of being the new grassroots solution because it was a technology created before a public demand. Ergo, the partisan early adopters dominated the technology without concern of expanding it past their own definition of uses).

For the past month, I've been silently weighing just what I can do as person, as a writer. I get this nagging feeling something's wrong. I eat too much, spend too much, use too much heat in the home, waste too much water. I'm not naive enough to think that I'm a butterfly who could start a hurricane by my small actions. However, I can't shake that I'm being distracted (via all the content leisure and consumption) from that meaningful life, filled with sex and laughter and adventure and wonder and bursting with all sorts of hell-yeah...the sort of life that Mark Morford (link at the right) preaches.

I feel as if I'm surrounded, weighed down, as if my blood has been replaced by grease and I'm moving listlessly, stuck in a rut with the same music and books and diversions but too cowardly to take something new into my diet. It's a larger sign that I can't get my shit together and move forward, tackling that novel, taking control of my life. I daydream big and grit my teeth when that's all they are at the end of the day.

You see, I envision things on a kind of linear planescape. There's where I'm at on one end and where I want to be on the other. At the end of the day, I do a quick check to see if I moved down the plane to the goal. Somedays I don't, and it's the dark where I pull into myself, a little broken and sadened that I gave up another one of those limited resoures, in this case days. I know I'm a finite creature, and I know I have to get creating, but something gets in my way and I fumble to get it out of my way. I'm waylayed too easy, and I can't get that fire going again, that passion to just bluntly march forward, knowing I got a lot of work to do. That passion, that drive, thrives on the challenge to make. Anything. Writing, that's a hard thing to do. I hear it from published authors in every interview, but you know there's something glowing and orange and mighty under every writer's chassis that gets them to go on. I need that. Everything around me feels so synthetic. It's that "real" I need, as well as the conviction and bravery to follow through with it.

I don't know how to get it. I feel like I need to just get rid of everything so I'm not distracted. I feel like I need to be severe, but you can't just be severe. You need inspiration. I wish I could shake this blandness I got going on. I'm too comfortable, and I know I have to shake myself out of that. I just don't want to sacrifice my wife in the process. Or the ability to pay for food.

As for the manuscript, it's in a godawful state. It's shameful. I thought I'd have a revision done in mid February. Now, I have no clue. I'm so fucked, and by proxy ashamed of myself.

Frustrating that the only emotion I feel with this writing thing these days is shame.

Scenes from a blue screen

Sample dialogue from the weekend. I'm on the couch, playing Half-Life 2. My lovely wife is on the couch, too, playing Nintendogs on her pretty, pretty pink DS.

My Lovely Wife: "Look, look what my pug can do. Oh, my pug has a cute little bow in her hair, yes she does."

Me: (screaming): "Headcrab! Zombie!" *sounds of shotgun explosions coming from the TV*

My Lovely Wife (to N-dog): "Ohhh, get the disc. Get it. You scored 10 points. I'm so proud of you."

Me: (cackling): "Come here, zombies. I got me a gravity gun with a chainsaw blade" *explosion, fire, inhuman screaming from the TV* "Oh jeez, that looks like it hurt. You know, that fire consuming your flesh is a lovely shade of pwned!"

My Lovely Wife: "Oh, good doggie. You did a flip. I'm going to give you a bath. Who's a clean girl? Who's a clean little girl? You are, yes you are."

Me: (panicking): "Whose bright idea was it to skin human being and turn them into fast zombies who can leap over roofs?"

My Lovely Wife (to N-dog, or me, or someone else entirely): "Let's go play in the park. No, don't eat that taco you found on the ground. Come. Don't make me drag you."

Me: "Shit! Fuck! Jesus Christ. Big fucking bugs. Everywhere!"

*SMG fire. Loud, frequent. Sound of bodies being ripped apart, dropping onto the sands. Then silence.*

"Hey, wait a minute. The bugs aren't attacking me anymore. The bugs...are following me."

My Lovely Wife: (to N-dog, I'm hoping) "You will go for a walk. Did you see what I did to (the other dog)? I will drag you!"

Me: "Look, honey. I have big bugs at my command. I can command them, make them line up in front of me. I wonder if I can make them do tricks?"

*throws an in-game object, that looks like a round chew-toy. The bugs depart, eating enemy alien soldiers.*

"Oh, how damn cool was that? Who are my little bugs? Who are my good little bugs? You are, yes you are."