Thursday, February 26, 2015

Grabbing The Funny Feels

My dear life mate Rick said to me recently that I should start blogging again. He brought it up because we've been in a cycle of annoyance with The Brood, and the ever-changing moods and 'tudes and general winter-time orneriness. I speak of One Member In Particular, and his name starts with a "Ph" and ends with a high-pitched screech.
I wearily nodded and said yeah you're right, I guess. Just not feeling the humor in it right now.
He insisted we have to reclaim the humor! Must grab the funny feels! Learn to laugh again at the madness!
Maybe I'll start today.
Like I used to do, in ye olde good days, with a stream-of-consciousness, yeah that should work. Phoenix narrates his entire life anyway. There is not a moment when he is not talking, even during supposedly silent, solitary activities. It is a constant, running chatter full of challenges and attitude and devil-may-care. It goes like this, as he plays a motorcycle game online:

"Watch out boy, it's me, na na na na na,  look who came out to play! Oh yeah! You're going down! Hey I just died. I did not see that coming. It's going to go DOWN . Charge! This is awesome. *break for whistling serenade* Break it-break it-break it! Take that, number 4. Ooh, you're right, I came to the right place. I just went down that hill?! Coooool... EPIC... woohoo! Woohoo dun-na-na-na-na, na-na-na, going foot first, yeah check me out. Stealin! Number 4's gonna be cool *break for evil laugh* Huh?! All these are about farms? This is a tiny little place. Man I was having fun there. Charge! Welcome to the game. Dun-na-na-na *break for evil laugh* It's going straight down people. Cooool. This is awesome! *break for whistling* *break for evil laugh*"

The formula is that I leave this right here, and when I come back and re-read it, I will snicker and get misty-eyed and think of the good ole days. Deal?

"Cool!!! *evil laugh* I'm standing on the streets, ready to laugh, suckers!"

Good lord when is February over.

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

To the tune of Muskrat Love

Greetings erstwhile readers!
That's the song that should be playing as I log in to my blog and look around. Or some other really old kitschy tune from some other time. What has happened here? It's feeling stale and dated.
I wonder if my stories have dried up for the moment.
Someone near to me suggested I start writing again, as though I willfully called a halt to the living-out-loud. I feel like the demands on my time are very real - and yet I surely also spin away hours doing other activities.
I write and delete and close the page and move on.
It is, after all, February.
I am weak in February. I could research the fact of this and ascribe it to my stars and Mercury rising or falling or hovering in retrograde. I could grimace and slowly shake my head while smirking "seasonal affective disorder." I could blame responsibility for sucking the marrow and energy from my small bones.
Instead I own it in my head and wallow and chain-read. You know? Like a junkie, I stack books and series to never stop for a moment to think in February. I fall into my favorite worlds and live there for as long as the books last. I walk along my bookshelves and wait for friends to signal me. I go for fantasy and battle and world-ending or world-saving or some really good magic. There are no light reads, no chick lit or beach reads. I want heavy immersion. Weighty issues please and maybe they don't get resolved by the end.
Meanwhile in real life...
Sure, I am present. After all, I sat on a bench for an hour yesterday and conversed with friends. Even got a little worked up over some current events.
My toes were bitten by the cold.
My eyes could meet your glance.
My heart can still pound a bit.
But it does so from a distance and the watcher that is me is removed from immediacy.
I need a buffer in February. I am figuring things out in February.