I have deleted several blog attempts over the last couple of days and even now I don't think this one has what it takes to be published and read by the tens of people who peruse my musings. I will admit to a slight Olbermann preoccupation and a Fallout New Vegas obsession, but that can hardly be blamed for a complete breakdown of confidence and another bout of self imposed writer’s block.
I know that self editing is a good thing . . . kind of. I mean in principle I know that. I would hate to think that this practice devolves into a sort of vomitorium of the Sanders subconscious. I’ll also admit to a sort of So you want to be a writer style that scoffs at convention or craft in a way that is privately unsettling and publicly akin to literary russian roulette.
I keep telling myself they can’t all be winners. And then I tell myself, hell you’ll be lucky if 25% of them have snippets that are winners. Then I tell myself to shut the hell up. Then the two of us give me the silent treatment and start to seek out some sort of liquid intoxicant. After a few of these it is all very reconciliatory and most times concludes with a bad rendition of a song from the eighties during which I hold a boom box over my head. I have a fair amount of conversations with myself in addition to the ones I have with imaginary yous. You might be comforted to know that I never do your voice aloud . . . but I do all the other voices out loud. Some of them are quite scary or funny or endearing - depending on the current cervesa count.
I will be very upset if I am discovered and become famous after my death. If that sort post mortem displeasure is possible I am sure some fragment of my energy will stay behind just to make an audible sound of disgust. My ego demands fame immediately and is crushed by its absence every day. Thank goodness for scarring of the mind and short term memory loss and then of course there’s the ducks, and sunrises, and family stuff that used to bring me joy before you ruined all of that. Hopefully I can find something to enjoy that a fictional you won’t destroy. I doubt it though. Imaginary you always ruins everything.
Since I’ve got a couple of words left before I hit the magic 500 I’m going to imagine that we go to Six Flags over Texas – not the dirty one, but the early one when the very idea of theme parks was still shiny and new. I’m going to imagine we went on roller coasters and didn’t feel sick and that we had funnel cake and didn’t feel sick and that we went on the water ride underneath the noon day sun and that our skin bronzed and our cheeks flushed. I’m going to picture us walking for miles in people-watching circles holding hands and bursting into a run at each new excitement. I’m going to see us too innocent to even consider kissing, but old enough to remember this day for years. I see us spending an hour in the photo booth, creating perfect tryptics again and again and snuggling oh so comfortably on the long car ride home in a way that can only be described as wholesome. I’m in canvas shoes and jams. My shirt is pink or checkered. I’m 99% sure I have a mullet of some kind. And neither of us has been broken or smashed. We are beautiful in our ignorance and possibility.
I know you’re not all in to the men. Do that thing in your head where you replace me with someone you do want in those pictures. I think I might just hit publish on this snippet after all.
I’m holding a boom box up over my head. I’m punching my right fist into the air as I head across the football field. I’m getting the girl and Blane is learning a lesson. Like the original. Like it always should have been.
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