Category Archives: Life

The Segregation of Church and State

I’m 250 words into a tripey little rant about lawn mowing which is somehow coming back to the meaning of life the universe and everything and I want to shoot my computer out to sea and let the turtles have it. Lawnmowing as a metaphor for procrastination. Lawnmowing as a metaphor for laziness. Really, really painfully dishonest stuff.

Long story short, I mowed my fuckin’ lawn for the first time today. I am a paragon of self-improvement, and you all should be really really jealous that you’re not me. Sigh of relief. That’s better.

Here’s the deal. I want to write things. I don’t expect to make a living writing. But writing, unlike just about everything else I’ve picked up over the years, is something I want to keep doing, and to keep getting better at, even if I never make a single cent off it. It would be pretty cool to get something published though.

I’m absolutely awful, bolded and italicized, at honesty. I am terrified of what people will think of me, and what I write. It’s why the blogs never get off the ground. It’s why my journal projects tend to devolve into long lists, sometimes lists of other lists. Today’s accomplishments. Highs. Lows. I don’t even plan to show anything in that book to anyone but myself. I am afraid of what future me will think of past me.  I have never read a single page of any of my old journals. Not one.

So, in the spirit of honesty, most of what I do is carefully orchestrated to provide a maximum of benefit with an absolute minimum of effort. I am not working hard. Not even a little bit. And while there is certainly something admirable about learning to complete the unpleasant nasty bits of work efficiently to free up your time for things you’re actually passionate about, based off of my free-time usage over the last few months, I am pretty damn passionate about bad American TV, video games in which you collect blocks and other items to rearrange them into blocks and other items, and articles on cracked.com.

But not writing.  When it’s good. When it’s a good writing day. When I’m not worried about what future me, or anyone else will think about it, and I can write like myself instead of pretending I’m going to be famous. I can work hard, and enjoy the feeling of working hard at something I’m passionate about.

So. I’m going to write more. I’ve got a new blog coming up fairly soon where I’m going to keep track of it all. I’m writing a million words of stories, fiction and non-fiction, and then seeing where I’m at. It will probably take at least a few years. I’m ok with that.

This blog is going to stay up as more of a journal. The ill-advised introspective rants, and the more mundane “what I had for breakfast” type nonsense. The experiments in progress and the life updates. An exercise in honesty, because sometimes I need to be reminded. My theory is that freed from the burden of actually producing readable, worthwhile content, the updates will be significantly more frequent on this blog. Granted, at the current average of 1 post per month, that shouldn’t be too hard to beat.

So all of the journal/life blogging stuff here, fiction and non-fiction stuff there.

I’ll have a url for you fine folks as soon as I have something other than a blank wordpress template up on it.

…some kind of pithy ending remark, I’m tired of looking at this box.