I think I’ve lost her.
Seriously. My muse is like a missing person.
Oh, I could blame it all on my impending birthday. My forty-first, incidentally. It’s odd to be so old all of a sudden, since I certainly feel no different, physically, than I did ten years ago. In fact, I’m probably in better shape now than I was ten years ago. Okay, maybe not better, but probably not any worse and, I hasten to point out, I am getting better, more fit, with virtually every passing day. And, of course, aside from being a cancer survivor with fucking lung scars and some lingering high blood-pressure issues.
Or, I could blame it on the fact that it’s been three years since I’ve been in a relationship or, hell, even on a date. You know, the holidays can be depressing all by themselves, but facing the damn things alone are worse. Worse still is having been with someone through these troubling and troublesome events and then finding ourselves alone again. People who have never been partnered up during the holidays don’t know what they’re missing. But, those who have, er, “loved and lost”, so to speak, remember… We remember all the family that’s not ours anymore. We remember only the best parts, though. The happiest part of the holidays. The laughs, the fun, the happiest memories. Not, thankfully, the bitter, angry, often drunken, rants and tantrums. Oh, the tantrums. How I miss them. No, it’s not that, though the holidays have been a little strange this year.
I could blame the past several months of non-writing behavior on the scans I have scheduled later this week. That old favorite scapegoat; cancer-survivor. The medical bills and the continuing scans seem like a great excuse for the creative well to have run dry. And this time around, they’ve dealt me a wild card. A scan I haven’t had yet; an MRI. See, when I do this workout stuff to slim down and lower my blood-pressure and draw in those hotties like bees to honey, my throat tends to close off a bit. The muscles in my neck get tight and the veins and arteries choke and throb and I find myself having a hard time swallowing. Not all the time, but enough to concern my doctors. And enough to generate concern warranting an MRI to take a closer look at just what the hell is going on there, since we can’t seem to figure it out any other way. So, top that off with the usual readioactive enema and I suppose that could induce enough anxiety to choke a muse and make her run off with that guy she met on the internet.
But, honestly, it’s not any of those things.
Crap, I don’t know what it is. It’s a phase, a cycle. It’s just a bit of writer’s block or cock block or whatever horrible cliched phrase you want to use. Temporary, I suppose, but I don’t know what I’d write if I were to suddenly be inspired again. Is the blog writing? I mean, really? Does it tell a story? Or is it just a nut rambling? I don’t know. I just sort of run my mouth at the keyboard and on the best days, I just pull out all the stops and safeties and just turn that dragon loose.
But, I have to tell you, good readers, blathering on about the horrid mundanities of my life isn’t the same thing as writing. Writing is about plot and character and building a storyline from a hook into compelling scenes. It’s about the reversal of fortune, or at least circumstances. It’s about change and development displayed through dialog and narrative. And, all that seems to run away from me like mercury when you slap it. It skitters away from my grip and shatters into ever smaller droplets that never quite seem to coalesce back into a recognizable shape.
But, my advertising revenue goes up with the quantity of my expressed angst, so, as the story goes, all I have to do is open up a vein and bleed it all out on paper. Or virtual paper in the case of this blog. This equally loved and hated blog that provides both release and the agonizing shame of need. I’ve practically forgotten why I started it more than nine years ago. I think my relationship with this blog has just about outlasted all my other relationships, actually. Or, given another year or two, will.
Besides, there was a time that I’d have rather written here, as poor as it was, than done almost anything else with clothes on. Well, aside from this one fantastic apple pie with stars on it. So, who knows, maybe it’s not real writing, but it does keep me off the streets at night. Maybe I should do it some more.
All that aside, though, if anyone sees my muse, could you send her home to me? For real. There are a couple of nice women I’d love to woo with a bit of poetry and the like but I can’t seem to write it without her. So, point her this direction if you stumble across her trampy self, okay?
Advice from your Uncle Jim:
Knowing that something is the right thing doesn't always make it easy to do, but that's not an excuse.
