Apparently I somehow accessed the old old Our Lady of Lust and Grace and it threw me for a fucking loop.
I think we’re back. But this is too funny not to publish as is. False starts and all.
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Well fuck.
Below the line is the article I intended to publish this morning.
That line from Kill Bill is riding the carousel of my inner dialog right now. Or my paraphrased version of it anyways.
Lucy Lui : Silly rabbit. You didn’t think it was going to be that easy did you?
Uma Thurman: You know, for a minute there, I kinda did.
The irony being, it wasn’t easy. Not for her, nor for me.
I did the obligatory changing of the password to get into my WordPress dashboard and damn. Nothing is there. Nothing recognizable anyways.
Can’t find any old articles, just one blank and something I know I didn’t write.
No stats, no subscribers, no way to access old articles.
I am glad I decided to write first, worry about the rest of it later.
I have zero clue what to do here. I truly believed I would just have to go through the headache of updating some plug-ins on muscle memory and poof, away we go.
Not learning a new language, just remembering it.
This is all Greek. Greek tragedy.
I think it has been updating on it’s own, into something unrecognizable.
The good news is, the website does still exist. I still have access to the corresponding email.
All is not lost per se. I just can’t find it right now.
Just gotta add this to the list of shit to do. Or reroute all y’all over to Patreon.
I’ll figure it out.
In the meantime, please attempt to enjoy watching me shake the rust off.
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Choices.
We all make them. From the infinitesimal to life changing. Sometimes those are one in the same.
My choice this morning was to get up and write. No checking my phone, no putting on the same mediocre show I have probably watched a half dozen times in the last 4 years. I haven’t enjoyed it, don’t know why I keep doing it.
It’s been 84 years since I wrote for you fine folks, minus 80. I think.
It’s kinda off-putting to know that all I have to do is log on here and I can see exactly the last time I did the thing I love the most. I haven’t done that yet. I am disappointed in myself for so many things, one of them being all of the time I have lost.
I have been off work for 21 days and accomplished very little beyond survival and getting a china cabinet. Finished Stranger Things, ate comfort foods and did the 12 days of Christmas burn-a-wish tradition.
This is the wish I am responsible for.
Step one was getting this old laptop up and running again, which I did, last September. Next logical step would be to update OLLG and all of it’s plug-ins, as well as this 7 pound tank of a thing. The right hand side of my screen is demanding so many things right now.
Remind me later.
Remind me later.
Remind me later.
My executive dysfunction, task paralysis and imposter syndrome still exist.
But there is a much bigger, worse thing.
Isn’t there always?
I don’t know who I am anymore,
I can tell you who I was before I stopped writing, I wrote it all down. And I wrote the truth.
All of it.
Ugly or not.
I know my name.
I have a straight job.
Alice came back and then she died.
The amount of time that elapsed while she was missing was the exact amount of time I got her back for. But that is a story for another day.
I have 2 kittens, Zoe and Violet. They don’t know their names.
I moved, twice.
This most recent house very much feels like a cat house.
Built in 1941, 3 storey split in 4. One water heater so I have to wait my turn for the shower unless I wake up at 5am or stay up until midnight. Walls like paper and not near enough outlets.
I have a roommate that I see once or twice a day, maybe.
But the rent is crazy cheap and I am heavily in debt.
And it feels kinda haunted, so that’s good.
Arizona replaced Florida as winter sanctuary.
But anywhere in America is off the table for the foreseeable future thanks to the cheeto in charge and my inability to keep my mouth shut about human rights.
Dave went crazy. But in retrospect, he might always have been.
Wolf is long gone and Darkling Daddy is still here. Which, in itself, is some kind of small miracle.
I remember those. I remember living a blessed life. I remember being more than what I am now and I miss her. I miss the muchiness.
Giant got married, I think, and I still talk to the Hulk.
Panda came back. And that seems the best place to start.
380 ish words and I got there. Not my best but not my worst.
She is so many things, but a touchstone and a testament is what I needed.
Initials carved into a tree to tell the world I was here. She’s the tree.
She met all the boys I used to write about.
Mostly.
I understand that the past is just a collection of stories we tell ourselves. But I have the added bonus and responsibility of telling literally everybody, why else would you be here?
Panda though, she makes it real. Not just tales I told.
Those people, places and things were real.
She lived in the houses I called home and she herself was home for me. Shared memories with different perspectives. She was in Newfoundland on that first trip. I finally got to tell her that I didn’t make much effort to get us out of there when she asked. Among 100 other confessions and apologies.
I quit vaping and went straight back to smoking after Alice died. It’s fine, the world is ending anyways.
Stopped at the same convenience store every morning for a coffee and a pack of smokes, and one day, there she was.
I had been dreading it. My straight job is right around the corner from where I knew she lived. But 3 years went by and no Panda in sight. To say my guard was down would be a staggering understatement.
7 years ago we ended things. It wasn’t pretty. I lost things that were important to me and she laughed. I was starving and instead of sending me the money she owed me, she got a tattoo. Her revelation of “ I haven’t liked you for a while now” rang in my ears for years afterwards.
How did I not know she felt that way, and if I did know somewhere deep down,why didn’t I stop it somehow, either by leaving sooner or making an effort to fix what was wrong.
The answer is simple now. Because it went the way it was supposed to.
Everything does.
Just like this.
Choices. Some small, some life altering and some just promises scribbled on burnt pieces of paper.
And honestly, none of it matters. All we have is here and now.
I have to work today. First time in 3 weeks where it has become unavoidable. I didn’t do any of the things I was supposed to on my time off. And even this is so on brand for me, waiting until the last minute to do the one thing I promised the universe I would do.
I have more things to burn and I missed the full moon, tomorrow is Epiphany, that’ll do.
As for Panda. We had living and growing to do that we couldn’t do together. It is near impossible to describe what it is like to relearn someone wrapped in the comfort of familiarity while simultaneously experiencing the intrigue of meeting the new person they have become.Maybe it’s like a cover of a song you used to love and forgot about for a while. Not same same, but not new either, some other thing.
I know this isn’t a great article.
I am going to publish it anyways.
Just like the books I wrote that suck really bad, I published them anyways.
Sometimes you just have to jump and see where you land.
I think the last time I tried this I made a bunch of promises that I didn’t end up keeping.
I won’t do that now. I have some ideas, and that is enough.
I have some hidden articles that I should probably move over to Patreon.
The subjects no longer need or deserve protection.
But for now, I am going to make another coffee, feed the kittens and pray no one flushes the toilet while I am in the shower.