shut up and write: my first short story (or essay) 11-13-13

For some reason I failed to understand I was John Wilkes Booth. Except I wasn’t. I could view my grizzled, wild eyed visage as if I were on top of this crazed killer of our President, holding him down so he could not escape. But then, I felt my own body, pinned tightly to my bed, frozen and heavy. I had surrendered to my fate, a grim smile crossed my face.

I knew I had to get up. I could imagine myself, awake and alert, and ready to fly out the door. I had promised to be somewhere. Perhaps to meet with my fellow conspirators. My body felt as though it had been beaten. Of course, it had been beaten, you idiot, you shot Abraham Lincoln! Don’t you remember? Remember? I am lying in bed. I had been tossing and turning all night. Even though I’d committed no crime, I felt like a fugitive. I’ll be late. I hate to get up now.

I sprang to my feet, and once erect, I felt fresh and alert, ready for the day, 8:25 am. Holy crap! Just enough time to dress and go, except I need to shave, and I need to clean out the cat box, and I should…..just go…Go!

So, here I was, desperately walking as rapidly as I could, down Valencia St. I knew it wouldn’t be long, perhaps even this sunny morning, that my fate would catch up with me. I had killed the President. My mind had failed to sort out the conflicting data swirling around my sleep deprived brain. I still felt as though I were John Wilkes Booth, a well known actor, who had made his escape to San Francisco, after depriving a much despised Lincoln of his life, and for just cause, I grant you. ‘Enough of this shit!’ I thought. This is not a day in which to be anyone other than myself.

As if to remind me of my true identity, I felt pain in my upper chest as I walked towards Borderlands. Is it my heart? I thought, idly. Such pains have so many origins. If I die, I die, I thought. For Booth life is but a brief affair, a Borderlands. Where else might I be heading in this odd place between sleeping and waking. Am I truly sitting here in a well-lit, comfortable coffee shop, writing much as John Wilkes Booth would have written, ink upon page, albeit with a quill and not a Bic.

Why would I think that I, an obscure fellow at best (still with the nineteenth century prose style, I see), but why consider myself to be a killer of Presidents? For the fame? the recognition, for the purpose of saying things are not as they seem, or maybe as a desperate attempt to alter the course of history. But then, it struck me as certainly as the hammer pounding in my head, I was also Booth’s captor. I held him down, with a grim determination. Damn you! and Damn what you’ve done! At the same time, I recognized that all of this was my brain’s attempt to make sense of the sleep paralysis which kept me pinned to my bed, seemingly unable to move.

There are so many inputs, so many possibilities, some leading to precious or not so precious insights, others leading to a one way ticket to the looney bin. It is hard to get my brain to work properly at times like these. I feel as though my brain is like a typewriter missing a few keys, leaving the reader to guess the intent, filling the gaps with their own narrative. That might be an interesting project for someone with absolutely nothing else to do, I thought.

You see, I am a writer, as you might have guessed by the meandering nature of the previous prose. I am never at a loss for words. My only restraint being the merit of the words. Does anyone benefit in any way, from adding my words to a brain already filled with useless junk?

Whoever said, “Don’t let the bedbugs bite.” clearly had no experience with bedbugs. As a longtime resident of San Francisco, I had more than enough experience with the little bloodsuckers. They were the cause of my sleeplessness. In a demented sort of way, I admired these bugs. They were damn near impossible to eliminate. I could kill them by the millions, the trillions, and no matter, they still would find……but enough about bedbugs. That is not a fit subject for man nor beast. After all, as a writer, I must consider my market. Bedbugs do not make for enjoyable reading, so I thought instead of the opportunity afforded by this unpleasant yet intriguing state of mind. Why the hell did I dream of John Wilkes Booth? What did that say about me? It is also interesting that I was both Booth and the man holding him down. How could that be? So here I am, on the lam from some heinous crime, and it is I who shall bring myself to justice. One of the first things I learned on my journey to the clear light, it’s all me, every last bit of it, even the bedbugs.

Just a few thoughts 8-17-12

“You are my sunshine” is playing. The original version. Meanwhile, as I check my email on Yahoo I see a man clutching his chest in pain having a heart attack. This sort of sums up my mood this morning. A nostalgic optimism plays in the back of my graying mind as I fear the worst. I often wonder if I might just collapse from a heart attack. I heard a story yesterday about a colorful character my coworker had known. The man died suddenly from a heart attack on his way home. The way he told it, it almost sounded sweet, kind of sentimental. He just quietly disappeared. One moment here, next moment gone. But death is not sweet nor sentimental, and heart attacks are horrific. I’ve had one, and hope to never have another, although I suspect that is a vain hope. Advertising and stupid, sentimental stories. That is what I am left with this morning. Grumpy once again. I am usually pretty optimistic, or at least optimistic. Not this morning. The crappy mood from last night has carried over into this morning.

Survival. We are so concerned with survival. and yet, we all know that death lies waiting in the wings. I am worried about whether my job will become permanent, I worry about….but I won’t bore you with my worries. I know how much I hate hearing about other people’s worries. It is hard to get excited about anything these days. The election?? Now there is a truly boring subject! I suspect you would rather hear about my worries than read about the stupid election. I think Romney and Ryan will win. Who can resist a little R n’R? Besides, the country is so disappointed in Barack Obama, and tired of the boneheaded way it has governed us. I will vote for him, though, because Romney is so so so much worse!! But I think the obese haters of this country are eager for revenge. They aren’t crazy about Romney, nobody is, but they really want to defeat Obama. All of this just makes me tired and grumpy. The situation overseas doesn’t brighten my spirits either. War is looming on the horizon. Israel and Iran are bound to clash, and we will be obligated to join in. Syria can prove to be the powder keg that ignites such a war, given that Iran and Hezbollah are busy propping up the Assad regime. Too large an Iranian presence in Syria, especially if it starts showing up in Lebanon as well, will provoke an Israel military action to take them out. This, I believe, is more likely than a strike to take out a nuclear reactor. But this is all tedious to think about.

In parting, we still need to have a paradigm change, but I am not as charged up about that as I was before. It is enough for me just to get through these days and generate the necessary energy to engage the customers at my job. Probably come Monday, I will find my optimism again and have more cheerful thoughts. I hope so. I am sure I am not alone in my pessimism, but we all need to regain our strength and help to turn this thing around. Because from my vantage point, it doesn’t look good. The whole world looks like that guy clutching his chest and having a heart attack.

New Day New Chance

This is what I wrote about myself for my new blog, New Day New Chance. I am keeping this blog, russell5087 even though it was the home for what are now bitter memories. I gotta live with those memories instead of trying to push it out of my mind. I think I might keep the new blog going as an exclusively poetry site. I already got one ‘like’ and it just got started. russellpop is kind of on hold, and the other one nolongerexists. So there! I still feel awful and kind of shellshocked, but I don’t want to write any more than that about it.

Here’s my little blurb about myself for the new blog:

I am a precocious older man of 58. I love to write, and publish my thoughts. I love when what I write serves as an inspiration to others. I just like it when I am discovered. When people seem to like me I am thrilled. I hate when I upset people, and I lose sleep over it. Sometimes I deserve to lose sleep. All of my writing has the underlying motive of really getting into the nitty gritty of experience, and waking up to what things are really all about. These are the kinds of things that thrill me.

Then I also wrote this little intro which I want to repeat here.

Hello!!

I am not new to blogging. I have had others, but only one was successful. But because I was not a responsible blogger, I was asked to take down a large part of that blog. I have learned my lesson, and this blog will be my attempt to clean up my act and be more responsible. I believe I can do this without losing my sense of humor or becoming hopelessly boring. I just need to take other people into consideration when I blog. I don’t want to hurt anybody, make anybody really angry, or embarrass anyone. That isn’t the sort of thing I enjoy. I have found that my poems are often quite popular so there will be plenty of them. I will also repost some of my favorite posts from my previous blog, but not anything that I believe anyone would object to. I am going to be much more careful this time around.

I still want to write in a way that challenges people to think, and to see things from a new and different perspective. I will still be outrageous but in a good way. I think you will enjoy my posts. The illustrations are going to be a bit more sparse because they will depend on my own original photos and artwork. I am no longer going to use any images without permission from the photographer and the model, if any. Nobody likes to see their picture showing up in strange places. This means I can’t just jump onto Google Image and find something to illustrate my post, but that’s alright. I will have to rely more on my imagination and leave the real world and real people out of it. Pure fiction. That is the best route to go for some of my creations. I also plan on writing commentary on real world events and people, and will do so responsibly.

Observing the degree that I had become an internet pirate, so to speak, alarmed me. It is very easy to slide down this particularly slippery slope. You watch as your stats rise and push the envelope a bit more each time, thinking that will attract more readers, failing to see that you have crossed a line. I don’t like to upset people, and being asked to take down posts is hard on my heart. I would rather post things that I know aren’t going to pose a problem for anyone. I think if I really work at it, that can be every bit as exciting as posts that push the envelope and risk blowback. I am so sickened by my last blog and some of the things I posted that I don’t even want to post under that blog anymore. It has become tainted. I want a new clean slate from which to start. Hence, New Day New Chance. Each day is like that, you can turn everything around each day if you truly want to.

Who am I? I am a 58 year old kid who never grew up, lives in a studio apartment in San Francisco with his cat, and works at a nice job where he greets tourists all day long. He loves writing and music, and art. He loves going into subjects and tackling things that sometimes get him into trouble. But he doesn’t want to go that route with this blog, because it isn’t worth the blowback. However, as before I do have a central purpose and theme, which is to help people, especially myself, to wake up. Waking up can be wonderful, and it can be very painful. Lately, it has been pretty painful indeed. I hope that the followers from my last blog will follow this one, because, you know what? there isn’t anything to follow on that old blog anymore. It is history. This is what is happening.

So that is what I wrote: TO BE CLEAR, I AM NOT GOING TO END THIS BLOG, BUT I HAVE CLEANED IT UP, TOOK OUT THE GARBAGE AND WILL LIKELY KEEP BOTH BLOGS GOING, BUT WILL LIKELY LET russellpop fade away into that place where blogs that don’t work out go. And that other blog I had? It nolongerexists.

Well, actually, I don’t think I am going to be quite as rigorous as I outlined above. There are some images that I just know are not going to pose a problem for anyone, they won’t be attached to objectionable content, and I wouldn’t be causing harm or embarrassment to anyone from posting them. But after what happened I am going to be a lot more careful.
So I have calmed down a little bit and have realized that perhaps the world isn’t coming to an end. I was running out of ideas for that project anyway, and it was consequently getting really weird. So it is just as well that it is over. I will start new projects that don’t cause problems for people anywhere, just my own private creations, using all my own sources. So stay tuned!!! I am not dead yet, although I do smell a little funny.

ADDICTION

ADDICTION

I HATE THAT WORD WITH A PASSION BORN OF MY CONVICTION THAT I CAN PURSUE WHATEVER I WISH, WALK WHATEVER ROAD, WITHOUT FEAR. I AM A FREE MAN.

AND YET ADDICTION EXISTS. HOW DO I KNOW?

BECAUSE WHEN SOMETHING YOU LOVE SO DEARLY SICKENS YOU, WHEN YOU HATE YOURSELF AND WISH YOU COULD PUT THIS THING OUT OF YOUR MIND AND JUST LIVE YOUR LIFE LIKE A NORMAL HUMAN BEING, THEN YOU ARE ADDICTED. IT ISN’T HARD TO FIGURE OUT. IT SIMPLY ISN’T FUN ANYMORE. IT HAS BECOME A CHORE, IF SOMETHING HAS YOU BY THE BALLS IT IS AN ADDICTION. THAT SIMPLE.

WHAT TO DO??? I SAY IT IS A MISTAKE TO TRY TO CRUSH THE ADDICTION UNDERFOOT LIKE AN OBNOXIOUS BUG, BECAUSE ADDICTIONS HAVE AT THEIR CORE A TRUE NEED WHICH SHOULD NOT BE IGNORED, THAT NEED WILL FIND A WAY TO SATISFY ITSELF AND IT IS UP TO YOU TO FIND THE BEST WAY TO SATISFY THAT NEED. FIRST OF ALL YOU HAVE TO BE BRUTALLY HONEST WITH YOURSELF AND FEEL THE PAIN AND THE HURT, ALL THAT STUFF THAT DRIVES YOU INSANE, BECAUSE ADDICTION WORKS AS A ANESTHETIC, A SOOTHING SALVE TO CALM THOSE TURBULENT EMOTIONS WHICH THREATEN TO TEAR YOU APART. ANY ATTEMPT TO DESTROY AN ADDICTION BY BRUTE FORCE IS RISKY BECAUSE IT CAN SERIOUSLY BACKFIRE AND LEAVE YOU WORSE OFF THAN BEFORE.

YOU CAN SEE WHAT A BULLSHIT ARTIST I AM. I KNOW ALL ABOUT THIS SUBJECT. I KNOW WHAT TO DO AND I UNDERSTAND.

OR DO I?

I AM ADDICTED, BUT I DON’T HAVE TO BE. THIS FLIES IN THE FACE OF EVERYTHING ANY PSYCHOLOGIST WILL TELL YOU. THEY INSIST THAT YEARS OF THERAPY IS THE ONLY ANSWER OR A TWELVE STEP PROGRAM IS THE ONLY WAY TO WHIP AN ADDICTION.

I AM NOT GOING TO ARGUE WITH THAT. I AM ALSO NOT GOING TO ARGUE AGAINST THOSE WHO BELIEVE I CAN ONLY DEFEAT ADDICTION WITH THE POWER OF CHRIST. I AM ONLY SAYING THIS:

I AM ON A JOURNEY UNIQUE TO MYSELF AND ALL THE CHOICES I MAKE ARE MY OWN, I TAKE FULL RESPONSIBILITY FOR THEM. I TAKE ADDICTION AND I STAND IT ON IT’S HEAD. I TRANSMUTE IT INTO SOMETHING ELSE. AN OPPORTUNITY FOR GROWTH AND A DEEPER UNDERSTANDING OF HOW THINGS WORK. I AM CONDUCTING AN ONGOING EXPERIMENT WITH MYSELF AS THE GUINEA PIG. I CHOOSE TO STARE ADDICTION IN THE FACE AND DISCOVER IT’S TRUE NATURE. I AM BIGGER THAN ANY ADDICTION. I AM STRONGER. I PAY CLOSE ATTENTION TO MYSELF AND SOMETIMES THAT IS A VERY PAINFUL THING TO DO, I MAY SUCCUMB
I MAY NOT SUCCEED BUT I REFUSE TO BE SHACKLED TO A BELIEF SYSTEM WHICH IS WORSE THAN ANY ADDICTION, AND IS IN FACT ANOTHER FORM OF SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE ADDICTION. I WOULD RATHER BE DEAD THAN HAVE MY THOUGHTS EMOTIONS AND EVERY ACTION TIGHTLY MONITORED BY A WELL MEANING BUT NEVERTHELESS TYRANNICAL CONTROL SYSTEM

PERHAPS I AM FULL OF SHIT.

IT WOULDN’T BE THE FIRST TIME

BUT IN ANY CASE THOSE ARE MY THOUGHTS SUCH AS THEY ARE REGARDING THIS DEMON LABELLED ADDICTON

A Young Man With An Older Body

This is how I look inside

I am a young man with an older body. I am forever 21. I have never been married, and have no kids, so that allows me this luxury. Although it doesn’t always feel like a luxury. When I was younger, I never understood what older people meant when they talked about how quickly time passes. At that time in my life, it crawled. I was impatient to become…..I wasn’t sure what, and adulthood could wait. I had plenty of time. But your body can’t wait. It becomes an adult without your permission. It grows old without consulting you. As I grow older and suffer some of the physical and emotional consequences, it becomes even more important to remain young inside. I refuse to become resigned to my fate. You may as well shoot me if that ever happens. I can remember how I used to treat older people with a degree of disdain. What could that old codger know? He has probably lost most of his marbles anyway. I often forget how old I am, as when I am writing a fantasy about a relationship with a much younger woman. It is sad to write from the perspective of a 58 year old man, and even sadder when I am even older, I am sure. Because all the good stuff is in the past. It hurts to write about tender kisses that I felt thirty years ago. It reminds me that I have no one, except my cat, and I ain’t kissing him! I was still planning on what I wanted to do when I grew up, when suddenly I had not only grown up, but was past the point of being grown. I was beginning to wilt. Now I fully understand what my father said about his life lasting only for an instant. Now I am painfully aware of the passage of time, a week gone by in a second it seems, and soon it will be over. Not enough time, not nearly enough time, to live what I had wanted to live. All of the experiences I never had, and certainly never will.

A slow, mournful violin should be playing at this point. If not, you can at least imagine it. These are not an old man’s regrets, they are a young man’s regrets, who never had the opportunity to be a true adult. I never grew older inside, I stayed the young rebel, with his whole life ahead of him, and now I am paying the price. But I have no interest in dwelling on the past, like many older persons. I choose to be young in the present. I listen to the music younger people listen to, watch the films they watch, laugh at the same comics. I even talk as younger people talk. I want so much to be them. But I am not. I am much more than that. I can be them more fully than they, because I have 58 years of being young and can appreciate every nuance, every aspect of what it means to be young. They squander their youth, not realizing how precious a commodity it is. I would give anything to trade my body with theirs, and have that vitality, to be able to simply walk down a street without my body complaining. Maybe, if those who believe in reincarnation are correct, I will have the opportunity to do this thing again, and this time I will jump into life with a greater vigor, and seek out every experience in the little time I’m given. Or perhaps I would squander it yet another time. Such is the lesson learned by a young man in an older man’s body.

 

Love

It is Valentine’s Day. Have you gotten a valentine? I have always felt like Charlie Brown when it comes to Valentines.

I often sat in the classroom, when in grade school, daydreaming about Susan McNeel. She was an adorable girl in the same grade as me. I gave her a ring for Christmas in the first grade. She was my first unrequited love, at least I think it was unrequited, I never asked her how she felt about me. I was a very solemn brown eyed, round headed boy, very much like Charlie Brown. I was so caught up in my fantasies I could easily have done what Charlie does in the cartoon below.

Not receiving a valentine can be very bruising for a little boy. I think this accounts for my cynicism regarding the holiday today. I can remember giving a beautiful red hat to a woman I was madly in love with as an adult. It didn’t fit her, and I couldn’t return it. I don’t remember what happened to it. Yet another Valentine’s Day gift tossed into the dustbin of history. I read in the paper today about a museum devoted to the artifacts of broken up relationships. That hat could have gone there. An artifact of a stillborn relationship. But I also recall a friend of mine sending a valentine to a woman he was infatuated with. I had been trying to get him to approach her and ask her out for many months. He started to send the valentine without his phone number, but I persuaded him to add that so she could call if she wanted. He was close to crapping his pants, but he did it. She called, and they even went out. I will leave the memory there, while it is still wonderful. I seem to recall valentines I received which were kept for years, until it reached a point where I could not refresh the thrill I felt when I received it. However, as I recall, in grade school little girls could be very cruel to little round headed boys. My self-esteem was pretty tattered after getting through first grade. Although I never opened myself up to ridicule to quite the same extent as Charlie Brown in this final example of childhood angst.

So there you have it. Love. How is it possible in this modern world of irony? Young people often think of Charles Schulz as conservative and out of touch, but he was ahead of his time in expressing the reality of childhood. When you have the courage to put your heart out there and express your feelings you can’t expect tenderness in return. Everyone is on their guard against such tenderness. They have been hurt far too many times in their lives. Yet Love still beckons, even for the hardest hearts and those who appear to have given up on life. We secretly yearn for that thrill of discovery. The discovery that you are truly loved, not for anything you have done, or you have, or because you look a certain way. Because you are. Nothing more. Our likes come and go throughout the day, depending upon our mood, or how our body feels at the time. Sometimes we can be pretty cruel, especially to strangers on the internet. But Love is something else. Like is a caprice. Love is forever. Love is commitment. Love is why we even bother. We like vanilla. or we like chocolate, but we Love the whole astounding magnificence of it all.