It begins.

I've thought about doing this for a long time now, but my fear of narcissism has generally eclipsed my desire to write.  I am doing it now mostly because of the encouragement of others, who seem to find that my talents in the realm of the written word are slightly better than average.  I don't want to write a diary...who the heck keeps a diary anymore?...but I do want to use this forum to describe my own life, with a distinct focus on the levity with which I tend to view my own muddlings through the mortal coil. Oh, and the title of the blog, though it may change in the future, is a reference to my mother's CONSTANT insistance that I write for the newspaper in high school and college.  So...here it is, Mom...I'm a writer.

So, since this is my opportunity to "publish" whatever I want, I'll start off with a couple things I wrote last year, and just hope somebody out there derives some sort of entertainment from them...

I wrote this and submitted it to Dirt Rag Magazine, but they didn't like it.  Its about what goes through my head on a typical workday followed by a nice bike ride in the woods...

Somewhat cognitive streaming.   Like telling the tale of a day when you ripped out of bed by the inside of your eyeballs when the clock radio goes off tuned in hard to Jimi...who plays that stuff at a quarter to five?  Heartbeat city.  The rate is jacked before the feet even hit the floor…and they hit the floor running.  Time.  Everything is about time.  What do you have time for…after making the time to do the necessary things like punching the clock?  Minutes to eat, minutes to dress, minutes to drive…how do those minutes turn to hours once the grind is at hand?  Thinking freedom all day long, a mind like a rat in a trap.  Consuming.  Eating minutes, feasting upon hours, waiting for the body to follow suit.  The endless cycle.  Work-hard-to-play-hard.  Nose to the stone, eyes on the prize, always dedicate a portion of the brain to the AFTER.  Freeflowing mindscape that channels those deep feelings…the ones that cause your chest to burn from WANT.  I will go there.  I will do that.  The bastards always trying to tie me down, but I choose not to be tied.  Do not run out of gas.  Feed the machine, the hours are on a downhill slide.  The sky is bright on the outside.  The madness continues,  a clutching tangle of thorns ripping away at the raw skin that is DESIRE.  The holy moment will come, the grail…the end.  I’m down with it.  So I switch into my chameleon colors, and roar for the horizon.  The hours become minutes again…fleeting.  Racing the golden orb as it follows its daily crescent.   Dancing along the shafts of light as they play through the scene, I fill those minutes with my soul.  Those moments create and resonate the very structure of being.  It’s about speed.  It’s about flow.  It’s about a ribbon of life through the chaos of the world.  Slam it back into gear, and run hard away from the reality of the darkness.  It will come, but I will fight it, and I will win by embracing it.  Take the trip back home to feel the hearthstone…warm and welcoming.  The lingering vacuum where once there was power announces itself with every step, but it’s the best kind of pain.  Burned out and ready to dream of the minutes I have lived, rather than those in which I have merely been alive.