Post Sub-Traumatic Stress Fatigue with Itching Redness

I've been mostly off work for two weeks. It has been a good time. I got to spend some time with folks I haven't seen in a while, get some hardcore writing done and, perhaps, best of all, completely lost touch with the American National News Cycle. The whole bizarre theater of the Fiscal Cliff played out while I was sleeping, drinking, writing and, oddly for me, playing video games.

Granted, I'm no Nero, but did Rome burn while I fiddled?

Apparently not.

I suppose a fair argument could be made for my activities amounting to sluffing off my duty as an American citizen, but I am adequately managing to control my guilt.

So congress pulled it out just after the last minute, apparently. Did any of you feel the urgency that we were supposed to over this deal? I'm honestly not sure if I suffer from some kind of political or financial fatigue, or if my instincts are sound and there was no emergency beyond a pile of journalists screaming "The Sky is Falling" in order to promote the foregone conclusion that it would be caught.

I honestly am beginning to believe that coverage of this manufactured event be handled by Jerry Bruckheimer and Michael Bay.

I have read the news on and off today and am staggered by my own lack of impression on the major elements of the current news cycle, but what I've gathered is that one of the following things has happened:

1. America has averted a major economic disaster.
2. America has delayed a major economic disaster.
3. Both sides of this political spin dance have failed to do anything but put a boogeyman in the closet and then look brave in his killing and dismemberment.
4. There's a sale at Penny's.

What do you all think?

Creation

Before, there was One.

One knew only One.

In time, One knew One and Absence.

One considered whether One and Absence were the same. One made the first Choice and decided One and Absence were not the same. Which left One with the first Question: What was One?

That One might answer One's Question, One made the second Choice and spoke it aloud, "Where there is One, let there be an Other, that One may know One's self."

An Other came. Much of the Other was Like to One, but even more was Different. The Differences between One and the Other defined them. Respectively, they knew Affection and Antipathy.

A third Choice was called for, and severally it was made. To be Bound or to be Broken the One with the Other or the One from the Other.

Bound or Broken, each was Appealing and Appalling in equal measure. One and the Other were at an impasse. Between the Other and One there was Choice, but not Compromise.

One clutched at the Nothing surrounding them. One grasped Nothing and wadded it tightly, crushing and compacting until the substance of the Nothing became Something. A hard little Something composed of all of Nothing.

“From Nothing,” spake One. “Let there be Everything!”

And the Something, pressed so tightly from the substance of Nothing, erupted. Pieces of Something flew from the tremendous pressure at it’s core. The pieces travelled in all directions, and did not stop.

“A test,” said the One.

“A Wager,” said the Other.

“What shall prevail?” One asked. “Attraction or Repulsion.”

“When shall we know?” the Other asked in turn. “Now or Never?”

“Soon,” answered One.

Thus began the Everything After, prior to which shall always be Before.

Who me?

2012 is shaping up to be a fantastic year for me and my family. I got published in a new Anthology by Crentus Libri Press called 100 Horrors. It's a short piece, but it's nice that I will soon see my own name in print, rather than just digitally. Although, if you have kindle, you can own it right now! Isn't that exciting.
Also, in January, I directed my first Vaudeville show and am deep in the middle of directing and writing my second. Where else do I get a chance to hand out with comedians and burlesque dancers as a peer? The Burlesque Troop is called Bottoms Up QC Burlesque and they are a gorgeous bunch.
Speaking of Gorgeous, my lovely wife is on a Roller Derby (The Quad City Rollers) team while working at her dream day job of counselling troubled youth! Brainy chicks are sooooo sexy. Tough brainy chicks are the absolute bomb.
I'm inclined to ramble now so I'll ring off. It is an unfortunate truism that Blogs tend to be more interesting when somebody's bitching.
Peace.

On Jollification...

I’m sitting in the parking lot of a haunted house, waiting for the coffee shop to open. That’s a fine first sentence. I really like it.

I have a bizarre sense of becoming today. Not exactly certain what it is that I’m becoming (an adult finally…nah!), but I am changing into something hopefully better, definitely more.

I’ve been writing all kinds of things lately. Comedy scripts, research papers, a zombie novel and assorted other tidbits of horror fiction. Some of it doesn’t even suck.

I also got paid to act for the first time in the last few months and I’m going to be performing in a great big yummy vaudeville show at the end of the month at Skellington Manor, the aforementioned haunted house.

But enough about me. Happiness in a blog can be so depressing.

A young man died this week. I didn’t know him, but I know his mother since we went to the high school that she teaches at. I heard him play the violin at my local Italian restaurant. He was great. He was a brilliant student as well. His whole life and future ahead of him and a loss like that is difficult to put in perspective.

His mom expressed it beautifully in his obituary, “The light that burns twice as bright, burns half as long.” I think that’s a beautiful sentiment and, if nothing else, inspires me to fan these various smolderings in my own life.

A piece of advice then, more directed at myself than you, gentle reader. Whatever the hell it is, do it. There will come a time when you can’t and you’ll hate yourself a little for settling for less.

From Gilgamesh:

        Why, O Gish, does thou run about?

        The life that thou seekest, thou wilt not find.

        When the gods created mankind,

        Death they imposed on mankind;

        Life they kept in their power.

        Thou, O Gish, fill thy belly,

        Day and night do thou rejoice,

        Daily make a rejoicing!

        Day and night a renewal of jollification!

        Let thy clothes be clean,

        Wash thy head and pour water over thee!

        Care for the little one who takes hold of thy hand!

        Let the wife rejoice in thy bosom!

Peace.

The sound of one hand typing

The title is a little more impressive than the content  in all likelihood. I'm trying to edit my blog on my kindle fire. It's working so far, but this is a slow process. For your edification, I will leave in all my spelling errors.

In any case, here we allare in a new year. Not terribly exciting for me as I've fonr it 43 times, but  there is still the notion of a fresh start. So now, I guess I make with the resolutions for 2012. In no particular order:
1) Cut another 20 pounds.
2) Finish the zombie book.
3) Write more for anthologies.
4) Write and direct a feature length film.
5) Find a way to reconnect with my lizard.
6) Look good naked.
Wow, now I feel all exposed, so to speak.
That seems a little cheesy, even for me, but I'm just kinda revving the engine. I have a letter to my brother-in-law to write and, hopefully, another 1000 words on the zombie novel mentioned above. I need to get more disciplined about making myself take writing time. I want to start trerating it just a little more like a task I need to complete, while still managing to enjoy myself.

To that end, I'm setting word goals, but not being aso concerned on what I'm writing. Letters/ blogs/ fiction/ scripts, it will all be one.

That's the guy I want to be in 2012. How about you?

Peace in the meantime.

That

That

McDonalds

I remember reading Hunter S. Thompson explaining why he loved the Gideons. He was a lover of powerful quotes and the bible never lacked for them. Thanks to the Gideons, he could be in any hotel or motel in the darkest seediest corner of the Western world and have access to some of the most powerful quotes this side of Shakespeare.
I understood this on an intellectual level, but had never internalized that feeling of connection with the enemy until I discovered McDonalds free WiFi. It connects me to all you lovely people at any time, in just about any city or town in the United States.
So here I sit, early on a Saturday morning, in an uncomfortable booth with a cup of bad coffee, having eaten a worse sausage burrito with the resources at my fingertips that dwarf any library in the world from a mere 30 years ago.
...and I feel the love.
They could shutoff the goddamn TV though.
Meanwhile, I only think it fair to share with you all that you are essentially my warm-up lap. I am getting ready for three hours of writing and observing over at Theo's Java Hut in Rock Island. They also got the WiFi, but they are closed at this hour.
I'm getting my fingers back into the typing, coming perilously close to that point where I am simply thinking into the screen through the unreliably analog, yet somehow glorious and therapeutic conduit of my fingers.
I have two writing projects to work on.

• A script for a second ad for Skellington Manor's Vaudeville Revue on Saturday, January 28th. 
• A new chapter to my zombie novel

After that, we shoot the first ad and I edit it while hanging out at home with the boys and maybe read a chapter from my wife's Abnormal Psychology textbook.

I'm just getting to know my friends a little better.

To know you is to love you, after all.

If you enjoyed this, take a look at my short story on Amazon, To Absent Friends. If you like that, please leave a review.

Peace and Good Hunting,

Matt

100 Horrors

I'm getting into middle years and taking a hard look at all I haven't done. There's two sides to that. I haven't made my first million on the one hand, but I haven't fellated (is that a word? today it is.) a biker for a glass of beer.
Everything has a top and a bottom.
This might just be an automatic writing exercise, destined to never be read by anyone. Then again, it might just be a warm up.
Meanwhile, let's talk about the things I want to do but haven't. I haven't had one of my works bought and published in a solo venture, but I'm knocking on it's back door. I got a flash piece published in an upcoming anthology from Cruentus Libri called "100 Horrors". There are 100 writers, each writing a 100 word flash that is supposed to evoke a fearful response.
It's almost like a haiku or other poetic form. Normally, I can't even clear my throat in 100 words, but I thin I managed to accomplish something interesting in my bit, "Romantic".
The book is tentatively scheduled to release on Amazon December 23rd. I'm dorky excited! Stay Tuned.