How I Became Rich and Powerful (Part I)

National Novel Writing Month made me quit my job.

Okay, maybe that isn't entirely fair or true. There were dozens of other factors that brought me to this decision. I'm overweight, my health is suffering. I don't sleep because I'm anxious about work. My performance is consistently overlooked unless there's something negative that can be shifted my way. You know, typical food service stuff. I've been doing this job for sixteen years in various states of satisfaction. Then, November rolled around. I'm a creature of habit, but that growing dissatisfaction with my career and where it has led me started to become insurmountable right about the time I started seeing things like, "101 Ways to Have a Fun, Successful NaNoWriMo!" and, "Is It Time to Murder Your Spouse and Focus on That Novel?" popping up all over.

See, most of these articles are written by morons. They're people who have a sort of generic voice, parroting back things that someone else, who maybe self-published a novel once in the halcyon days of 2002, wrote down so they could show their exasperated friends and family that, "Look, I am a real writer."

The rest of them, barring a special few with something to say and the moxie to say it well, are written by people that want to give you just enough vague, nonsensical advice that you'll decide writing for money is fucking magic and take their 12-week course on which part of Lucifer's taint you need to suck to get a book deal.

So, I thought, I gotta get in on that racket.

Then I had some work stuff go on, which I won't delve into too much because I'm still processing it. Long story short, I became willfully and gloriously and terrifyingly unemployed. So here I am, with a dozen browser pages open to different job searches and the thing I keep coming back to is the feeling that none of it will make my health or my well-being, or even my long-term financial situation any better. Because, ultimately, I don't want to do anything I'm seeing in front of me. I want to chase that dream, slay that dragon. I want to quit being such a fucking coward and put everything on hold while I go on this quest.

Typical, selfish, and invigorating because now, right god damn now, I can do it. Oh, sure, my head's all big because I had one little short story published this year but that is all I needed. I needed some editor somewhere to say, "Hey, you're pretty good at this." Since then I've been a maniac, writing and plotting and doing the things I had only sort of contemplated before, because the reality is that I've always assumed my support system, my incredible friends and family who have patiently listened to my excuses for not doing this, would get tired of me lounging about in front of a keyboard trying to make this happen. But you know what? I'm wrong.

So while the encouraging articles on how best to write your novel are being hammered out by idiots, and the world keeps spinning toward the end of this year, and I have no financial safety net except to be excellent, I realized that it was time to shit or get off the pot. Stop saying you can do it and just do it. Worst case is some hunger pains and light homelessness. Its not even that cold yet, so I think we'll be fine. I choose to shit.

Also, I have an interview for a Human Resources job tomorrow morning. Baby steps, kids.

Yours,
-JT

Rhyme and Reason

I haven't written a poem in five years. Now, I was never much of a poet to begin with. I have always preferred fiction. There is a freedom, in prose, to ramble and lose yourself in tangents. It is, by all accounts, the more forgiving method of writing. And, truthfully, I have never been particularly good at poetry. You could say that's subjective and I would say that I have personally met some of the most talented poets of my generation and it is not, actually, subjective. Not one bit. Its a skill that can be honed, but one where a natural affinity either is or is not present. I'm not a terrible poet, I'm just not a very good one. Even in short form I have always written songs, preferring to hear melodies and music as I spill my words.

Poetry has always been a little bit mythical for me. When people talk of muses and the sort of divine inspiration that comes with being an artists, poetry is what it brings to mind. I have never, for instance, plotted a poem. I've never edited one. They appear, when they appear, wholly formed. In a moment of creative fury I put them down on paper and that's it. The feeling is gone. The magic, if that's what it can be called, is used up all at once. It strikes when it strikes and never by choice. I have pulled over on highways, left meetings, ignored classes and family dinners, ended phone calls and interrupted post-coital cuddling because I had to write something down. Fiction is different. There's always a source for it. I can trace the idea for every story I have ever composed back to a handful of specific, if unrelated, bits of inspiration. Different things that came together and gave me an idea. Fiction, therefore, seems much more logical to me.

I can't edit a poem. I can't change character names, descriptions of places, the subtle but flowery details that come with a love of language and a vivid mental picture. I can't move chapters around to make the narrative flow better. I can't eliminate whole threads because they went nowhere. A poet, of course, will tell you that you can absolutely do those things. That poet is fucking wrong. She can do those things. I can not. You, its likely, can not. For me, a finished poem is one that is out of my brain and on the page. Further examination of it can only tell me if I like the piece or if I should save it into a file filled with songs and poems and half-thought short stories that I tell myself are works-in-progress but are really just mental abortions. They are twisted, awkward things, shambling around with acne-ridden faces and treatises on war and politics and the semi-incestuous relationship between fantasy and heavy metal. The kind of thing that, if it went to school with you even your least socially adept friends would pity it. They aren't inherently bad, my basement-dwelling creations. They're incomplete. Or, rather, incompleteable. Perhaps that's too harsh, but I would encourage you, non-poets, to sit down and write a poem and then, upon being dissatisfied, try to edit it into something palatable. You can't because poetry is a thing of divinities and you, poor bastard, are as mundane as I.

I'm not saying poetry is the most difficult thing in the world. In fact, a few of my poet friends struggle mightily with fiction for a variety of reasons that have nothing to do with their implied magical natures. I give them advice, if and when they ask, but the truth is that fiction requires discipline and poetry requires you to be some kind of a god damned ancient Greek creatrix.

I'm not even sure what led me to musing about how long its been since I wrote a poem. But, I suppose that's the point to this whole thing isn't it? It just fucking came to me, all at once, without rhyme or reason, and now that it's out I'll probably never consider it again. Well, except as an example in five years when I wonder why I don't write blog posts like I did in my angsty teenage years. Or, for that matter, in my mid-twenties.

Look for it around 2022, probably posted directly above this one.

Yours,
-S.R.

Game Over, Man

The election, at long last, is over. Donald Trump is going to be President. 

Let that sink in. 

If you voted for Hillary, and if you're reading something I post chances are good that you did, you're probably feeling a lot right now. Shock, confusion, sadness, anger. You'll grieve in your own way. Just remember that the final stage of grief is acceptance, and you have to accept this. The democratic process is a wonderful thing. And if you care enough about this country, about democracy to have voted and to have these feelings then you have to accept the outcome and understand that the result isn't always what you hoped it would be.

I have always found politics fascinating, but more fascinating is the way people react to politics. I remember, as a very young man, my grandfather ranting and raving when Bill Clinton was first elected. He was a staunchly conservative man, my grandfather, but he was as complex as any of us. I remember when Bush was elected, the way people almost immediately started insinuating, implying, outright stating that he was a complete moron. In the last eight years I have seen President Obama, the first president for whom I was old enough to vote, called a communist, a nazi, a nigger. 

The time has come to stop that. The vitriol, the hate, that unwavering rage that has been spewing forth only creates more of the same. This election has seen so many unprecedented things, things that get overlooked when we only focus on the things that make us angry. 

If you voted for Hillary, know that your candidate actually won the popular vote, although not by a tremendous margin (otherwise she would have almost certainly won the election). Know that the things you really stand in favor of, women's health and equal rights and sensible gun control, are the things that the majority of this country also want. This was the closest election I can recall (without looking up figures). That alone should give you some indication that the status quo has changed, must continue to change and evolve with the times.

If you voted for Trump, know that I get it. I understand those things that frighten you. Those things, like jobs and safety, that are important to you. While I don't believe that Donald Trump is the man to help you with those things, I hope that I'm wrong. Truthfully, I hope that he is the right person for the job. Know that the change that you see won't stop because progress isn't something that can be stopped with an election. Progress, real social progress, is a natural outgrowth of people. And while I think that fiscal conservatism and small government are wonderful things, I believe that you have overlooked the major social changes that brought us all to this place. The national identity that allowed a man with no political experience to challenge the multi-billion dollar political machine and win. Please don't simplify this for yourselves or others. Trump didn't win because he made himself louder and more confrontational over and over. He didn't win because he's a billionaire racist and that's what the people want to follow. He won because America's national identity demands that we challenge the establishment and that's what he did. He challenged two hundred years of politics and we wanted someone to do it. He was the man with the ability, the person in the right place at the right time to take advantage of what we, as a people, wanted to see.

For both sides, know that the next two years will not be easy. Any president faces challenges, disasters, hardships. That's the job description. There are hurdles in every facet of our country from education to healthcare, foreign policy to infrastructure. Don't simplify the issues and call them fixed. Don't make this a party line. Hold your elected officials accountable. Seek out new, stronger candidates. Mid-term elections are two years away. Give them two years to make good, to show you that your votes weren't just sustaining a system that is already rusted and rotted. And God help them if they don't. Continue the momentum this election has created and keep pushing for change, but remember that hate never changes anything for the better.

If you didn't vote, or if you chose to vote for Harambe or a write-in, then do us all a favor and shut your fucking mouth. The adults are trying to make a better world. When you're mature enough to handle that responsibility then you can join the conversation. Until then, sit the next couple of years out and think about your actions.

For the rest of you, allow yourselves the time to process everything that has happened over the last year and a half. Think about the social unrest, think about the people all clamoring, in one way or another, for things to change and understand that, whether it went in your direction or not, we accomplished exactly that. Things are changing, because they must change. Every change is scary, new things have always been frightening for humanity. Don't lose hope that these changes will result in something better. We built civilization from the ground up, with tools and systems that we invented. Not every idea has been general relativity or Shakespeare or the wheel. Not every plan comes to fruition exactly as it was laid out. The real work is in the small pieces, the little tweaks and compromises we make as we strive toward a better future. A future we can only reach together. United. 

Please remember, too, that people are complex. Donald Trump may be a lot or negative things. Hillary may be a lot of negative things. We all have negatives. We all make mistakes. In places of power, in times of crisis, in private moments when we hope no one else will notice, we can all look back and see things we aren't proud to see. Overwhelm the negative with positives. Look for the good in people and nurture that, rather than attacking the negative things about them. I don't personally like this man, but I don't personally know this man. I didn't vote for Hillary because I like her. That's absurd. I have some very dear friends, people I know intimately and love unconditionally, but I wouldn't fucking vote for them. I know every stupid thing they've ever done. I know how they would handle, say, immigration by just passing out beers until everyone was too drunk to remember why they were concerned about it. You don't vote because you like a person you've only ever seen on s television screen or a You Tube video. You don't know them well enough to like them. You vote because you believe they stand for the same principles that you hold dear.

So be hopeful, and be attentive. You elected these people, and you have the power to continue to change this country and world for the better. Hold your leaders accountable, challenge the preconceptions of how things are and push to make them how they should be, how they can and will be when we, as a people, come together and decide that our differences are as much a part of our strength as our similarities. With challenge comes change, and with change will come progress.

Fear of Silence

I have surrendered up my words to fear, and succumbed to silence. Let the dark take my songs and twist them, tear them out of my hands and throat and hurl them away. Fear of that very silence has driven me to it. Fear that there was nothing left to say. That all of the self-important voices and verses about vices and vice versa were dried up, depleted, repeating over and over again.

A woman dances. I spill my guts in a shower of gore. Rinse and repeat. Cash the fucking check. A run of the mill windbag, windmilling the same too-taut notions of viscera and shock and schlocky sex. There's nothing cerebral in it. Nothing visceral, really. Gratuitous, glorified nonsense. Piteous things, those words then, pious though they sometimes were. Pedantic, prattling poetry and pilfered, polluted pragmatism perched upon ponderous pustules. All about alliteration, all the while braying that the forms, though always worth a read, are too restrictive. As if creativity gives a damn about which channel you're watching.

So what is worse? The fear of silence or the fear that nothing I've said has made a difference? Indeed, that I have said, at best, nothing. A year (and some) of sleepless nights and listless, breathless pacing. A year (and some) of twitching fingers and rampant, repugnant anger. The sort of directionless rage that twists you into knots and warps the world around you. A year (and some) and I have found the answer here is neither.

Perhaps I've never said a word that matters. Perhaps I have spoken once, and then everything else has been echoes. Perhaps all the profound things I could unearth I've already sold for scraps, squandered all the gifts I was born with on whores and drugs and other men's brilliance. I could be wrong. And what if, suddenly, the silence took me forever? If all the potential still to be mined stayed there, buried, forever. If no one ever read my tales of bards and broads and battles. If all my songs went unsung and all my heroes vanished. If Tyrvas never reclaims her honor, if Hyleth never saves his wife. If Rythe never rallies against the Darkness, if Varth and Kade are never reunited. What if?

The answer, of course, is that the fear is the worst part. If silence takes me, then silence takes me. Shame on me for losing the fight. If all I had to say is said then let it echo on and on again. But being afraid is foolishness, and that I cannot bear. I have always been terrified of looking stupid, and in being terrified gave stupidity a chance to creep in. I will not stand for this anymore.

The storm is brewing. All their voices keep me up at night. All howling, all in chorus, all telling their stories at once. They can't die, not really, not unless they die with me. So now to break the silence. To stretch and flex, to unfurl from this hibernation and shake the dust off of my bones. Now to claw at the sky and breathe deep of the earth. Thunder. Fire.

I have never felt so alive.

Revenantly Yours,
-S.R.

Uncertainty

There's a sinking sensation here, in the center of the universe. An almost imperceptible feeling of ineptitude. There is a wrongness in this place. I get the sense that I've taken a wrong turn, but there haven't been any turns for miles. So I bite my tongue and think of something else. Something brighter, but bright things seem ever in the past, tangled up with people and places I've long since left behind. It is almost as if the best of things are done and gone, and only the slow trod of time remains. I'm not unhappy here, not exactly. Not unhappy, but unusual.

Things have gone beyond my control. Far past my comprehension, in ways I can't begin to grasp. I lost my edge somewhere, that indomitable part of me that demanded solitude for the sake of my sanity. Too many people, too close, and not a single one of them afraid of what I am. Perhaps they can't see it. The domesticity seems to have leeched into my bones, and I spend my nights thinking of stories I can't find the words to tell, escapes that I have no way to put into motion.

And yet, for all of it I'm not unhappy.

There is a mildness to me, now. A sort of numbness. I have always been a creature of routines, but I don't crave this one the way I have before. It isn't that I don't care, that I don't feel. I just don't care the way I should. I don't feel as strongly as I have. Little hope for salvation. Perhaps this is salvation. From that old, wild spirit. That raving lunacy. The madness brought on by drink and food, by the words of bards and the tales of heroes. The unquenchable thirst for ever more adventure, roving far from home and finding that there's newness, even in the oldest places. I miss the sky. I miss the taste of new flesh. There are parts of me, deep and dangerous things, that yearn for it again. That roil and writhe in rebellion against this new, petrified self.

I find my fists clenched. Eyes wandering wildly. Heart racing. I want to run and fuck and feast. I want to create. To destroy. To rend the myriad worlds I've built and then build them anew. I want to savor every sultry inch of the earth, to take her in wild flights of need, to succor and sate myself upon her. I want to be alone of it all. The wanderer, spinning his tales over a drink and then vanishing. A spectre and a story.

I'm not unhappy here. But then, I have never wanted for happiness. There are better things in life.

Fleetingly Yours,
-S.R.

Glorified Nonsense

So what the fuck is up with airline food, amirite?

If that didn't chase you off, then...awesome. You can sit through bad jokes. That's a skill you're going to need here because this shit is about to get wacky. I mean, it's after midnight here. I worked all day, I have to work again in like, six hours, and I've spent most of the time I allotted for "awesome stuff" bitching about how bullied kids are pussies and watching funny videos on the Internet. I'm living on the edge of my seat, is what I'm saying. Gabbing life by the sack and just...I don't know. Pulling on it? That sounds like kind of a dick move (hah!).

In fact, I don't even know that I have something to say. I'm just so damned happy to be posting something on here. I'd like to blame the holidays, you know, or literally anything but my own sincere and yet unbelievable laziness. But, no, just lazy. I've been reading and playing through Oblivion again and I've even spent some time at work doing things I get paid for, but the old blogosphere just sort of gets ignored in the fast-paced life I lead.

I'm still writing, though. Novels and what-not. I think if I ever tried to stop my colon would literally grow limbs, climb out of my body and devour me. Because that would be the ultimate way to shove my head up my ass (GET IT?). My blogs, though, I seem to go through spats. Like poetry. I'll go through a week or a month or four years of high school where I just compose like a mad...composer, fingers all aflutter and reams of words spilling out of my brain. And then, silence. Save for the long fiction, nothing comes. I've even got about a dozen posts I started writing on here (not to mention the other two blogs that I'm involved with because monogamy is just terrible, but don't tell this one because it gets jealous of the attention I give the younger ones). I just never finish them. I get a few sentences in and then I'm like, "Oh, right, porn is a thing I can do for free."

And then I remember that there are other people here and fapping isn't an option so I go outside and rake leaves or whatever.

I just realized two things. First, I used the word blogosphere and second, and more importantly, my browser didn't correct it. Is that an actual word now? Did I miss a meeting somewhere? It's not cool to do that to me, you guys. Don't just make stupid things socially acceptable and not tell me. If its a real thing I can't use it sardonically and if I can't use it sardonically I might as well just piss off.

For serious, though, I'm into this story. It's got everything. Comedy, boning, Vikings (kind of), zombies, badass action, characters and an intriguing plot or something. And I titled all the chapters using the names of metal songs, because fuck coming up with chapter titles and copyrights are for wusses.

And that reminds me.

Wait, no it doesn't. Nevermind.

There's something of literary merit in those last two lines, but I don't really know what it might be, honestly. Probably nothing. Just glorified nonsense.

Oh, dropped a title-bomb right in your mind parts. I win Internets.

Ridiculously Yours,
-S.R.

Bullying (Or, Stop Being Such Ladies)

Let me preface this by saying that if it offends you, I firmly believe you are the problem. That said (because saying it means I can instantly galvanize my readership into two sides and stir up a whole bunch of shit) my intent isn't to be provocative (that's a lie) or to insight a riot (also a lie) but to weigh in on a hot-button issue that has come upon a bit of a lull in its media coverage.

I want to talk about bullying. Candidly, I should add. You should know by now that I'm always candid. I don't do dress rehearsals before I post these things. I just spew them out into the Internet. I'm like an articulate You Tube commenter. Full of irrational thoughts and nerd-rage that mask deep-seated insecurities and latent homosexuality. Only none of that, and much more awesome.

Anyway, bullying.

I don't agree with bullying. Only sociopaths think bullying is a good thing. But I do think its a necessary thing. Necessary things aren't always positive, naturally, and too much of anything, necessary or not, becomes a problem but I think the issue of bullying in this country could be curbed pretty easily. If kids would just stop being such pussies.

Ah, there. Four paragraphs to get to the inflammatory statement.

I'm not saying this as someone who has comfortably walked through life. If you knew me before college (because my idiosyncrasies were accepted, fuck encouraged where I went to college) you know I was kind of a target. Scrawny, quiet, frequently dressed in women's clothes and Crow-esque makeup. I was into things like books and Japanese RPGs and writing just the worst poetry you've ever seen. I smelled funny because I was like, "Fuck bathing" and I wore a lot of leather. Seriously. Like, so much black leather Dimmu Borgir would have asked me to calm it down.

I got picked on a lot, is what I'm saying. The ugly truth about being kind of weird and insecure and way, way smarter than your peers. Unfortunately, despite years of playing football (both the American and rest-of-the-damn-world versions) I wasn't ever particularly imposing. I went to school in rural areas where kids rode four-wheelers and shot at beavers for fun. Ten-year-olds started chewing tobacco and beating up kids like me for kicks about the same time their mothers finally stopped breast-feeding them whiskey and sour milk. So I was a small, quiet, presumably gay (at best, goth) kid from a low-income family and that meant I had, well, quite a bit of time to get used to what fists and dirt taste like.

And you know what? No big deal. Because after a while I figured out that those kids were fucking idiots and, despite my long-standing refusal to consider myself better than another person, they were clearly outmatched. First, I stopped being so afraid. There's only so many ways you can call someone a fag before it stops stinging. There are only so many times you can get shoved into a locker by some douchebag in a crowded hall before you realize that if you step just a little out of his reach, he falls down and looks like a moron.

There are only so many times a kid can call you a name before you leap over a desk and beat the everloving shit out of him in front of all of his friends. And while I was never all that big, I did have blind, Viking berserker rage for that last one.

And, quite frankly, social media made it easier. I didn't have a Facebook until somewhere around the middle of my sophomore year of college. But I did have a Myspace page during the height of its popularity and you know what I realized? Bullies are dumb, guys. Really, really fucking dumb. Even in a world where reality television exists and the most successful forms of entertainment have an embarrassing story-to-explosion ratio, people will read the things a bully says, all hate-mashing keys with his gorilla fingers and spitting on the screen because he can't understand that you aren't actually there in the room with him. Then they'll read the articulate response you crafted, because Internet conversations aren't, in fact, identical to real life conversations where you have to be witty at a moment's notice and you have plenty of time to think up something awesome before you reply, and even the cretins will realize that, holy shit, that guy might actually be retarded.

Now, I know kids these days are constantly being social which means that even though I could escape that bullshit when I got home as long as I stayed the hell off of Myspace, they're always logged on. But you know what? Log them the fuck off. Just because your phone can access Facebook and Twitter and Cracked.com at any time doesn't mean you should. And if those cyber bullies we're always hearing about are such a problem why don't you just block them? Facebook has some pretty convenient privacy settings so people you don't want to talk to can't talk to you. Sure, its kind of a hassle but, I mean, so is being bullied until you kill yourself.

That, or catch that little twat by surprise in the hall between classes and cave in some of his teeth. Or her teeth. Lesson learned. And if your school throws you out for standing up for yourself? Well, fuck it. Those guys were dicks anyway.

What I'm saying is that bullying isn't a sudden epidemic. It's been around forever. My parents had bullies in school. My grandparents might have, but they were all so brutal I doubt the bully survived to adulthood. It isn't some new age, modern world problem. But being a pussy about it? That's new. Having parents that are too busy tweeting inane bullshit and sharing pictures of stupid cats to check up on what their kids are dealing with? That's new. In fact, having parents that are pussies? That's new, too. I think I complained to my mom once that a kid at school was picking on me. She asked me if he ever hit me. I probably said something like "uh...." and she responded that, if he took a swing at me I was, under no circumstances, to let him walk away without enough bruises to make sure he never pulled that shit again.

Physical bullying goes away. All of those "it gets better" speeches will tell you that. In fact, by the time you get to high school physical bullying is probably all but completely gone from your life. Its the mental stuff that really gets you, right? The emotional torment. Well, folks, if you have ever had a boss who was a total prick, or a co-worker who kept getting you into trouble for shit they did, you've found exactly where those people end up. Bullies don't grow out of it, but the power they have to hurt you does get weaker. Because as you get older you realize that those people, the ones that want to make you feel like shit, are nothing. They're empty, worthless people and their opinions don't matter to you or to anyone else.

That's what I learned from being bullied. That those assholes you encounter in the real world? Those human failures (no matter how materially they may appear to be successful) are the same jaded, bullshit, fuckheads you learned how to ignore (or beat senseless, if the situation called for it) in school. The kids who never had to deal with bullies? Those are the kids that have a hard time adjusting to real life. The ones that have a mental breakdown every time someone critiques them. They didn't endure years of abuse and now they're crippled every time someone disagrees with them.

Of course, I don't think every bully needs his ass kicked. Actually, I do think that, but your kid is kind of a pussy (as I've established) and is in no way going to fight a bully. In fact, if he did, your kid would get fucking destroyed. And violence isn't always the answer. Or even always necessary. Sometimes telling an adult that gives a shit, or a friend that gives a shit, or a parakeet that gives a shit, will be enough. Sometimes I got frustrated with it and I vented to, well, myself because I didn't understand social cues and couldn't bring myself to talk to other human beings unless they approached me first. But I vented, and then it all seemed so...petty. I got over it. Because it was silly to be upset in the first place.

Kids calling you names makes you want to die? Kids throwing things at you or embarrassing you in front of people you haven't known long enough to remember their names makes you want to end it all? For fuck's sake, really? Say that out loud. See how insane that sounds?

Of course, you could always start wearing a long, black trenchcoat. Then at the very least everyone will be so terrified you're about to shoot them they won't dare bother you. Worked pretty well for me for a little while (although it was entirely unintentional, I started wearing them because they look badass). Obviously don't actually shoot them. That makes you a pussy too, just a pussy with a gun. But you can use the reprieve to bulk up, learn some kickboxing, grow a bitchin' beard.

Then go back to school in September and shove every one of those damn nerds in a locker for picking on you.

Irascibly Yours,
-S.R.

Raining on Odinsday

I am stalking through your words, though perhaps stalking is not the right word. I glide through them soundlessly, save for when one brushes me and bursts inside my head. I linger near these the longest, watching the afterglow, like light from distant supernovae, begin to vanish, to coalesce until the explosion is a word again. I am marked, I think, by these eruptions of power. Changed in some fundamental way. Better, for having embraced it.

I'm wandering through your words with purpose, but without aim. Sometimes familiar places and sometimes new ones. It's dreary here today, the kind of day when I set aside most everything in favor of a long novel and a cup of tea. I should be working. There are weeds to wack and holes to dig. Dishes to be done. I should be curled up on the couch with a story and a hint of honey and cranberries. Instead, I'm wandering in your closets looking for monsters and through fields of fireflies. I'm wandering through deserts and old houses with floorboards cracked like fractured bones. Words are stories, and your words are each a story of your life. A thousand of them on your back, and still you are never bowed by them. Brought low by weight and time and miles. I never come here to watch you hurt, but sometimes the pain I see is a sort of euphoria. The ecstasy of creation.

I come more often to see you dance. There is a kind of recklessness to those words. A deep, intoxicating freedom in them that I find brings my tongue to life. It sparks and surges until new songs are pouring out of my lungs. Words of my own stories fluttering by and seizing upon the moment. Nuitari's unseen magic, perhaps. The dark moon hung in the sky and driving us mad.

I come to witness your desire, the way your skin looks flushed with need. The way your fingers wander. I have imagined putting words to you, as canvas, but what I really want is to write you. The way you taste to me. The way you sound. I can conjure the smell of roses on Friday morning, still wet with dew, growing in the foothills of my mountains. I can give you worlds of men and women, fantastic creatures, of war and sorcery and the evil that men do. Stories of redemption and love and pain. But you elude me.

Your gift to me is, has always been, the words. But never the ones I need to write you. Take heed, little muse.

Intrinsically Yours,
-S.R.

Shut Up When I'm Talking At You

All I hear is human noise
You made your own fucking choice
I belong to only me
Silence for my revelry

This world is so loud. Human beings are so much shouting and clattering, the cacophony is deafening. Everywhere a new voice shrieks into existence before being drowned out by the din, effectively silenced by the screaming mass of sound that humanity has become.

Sometimes, I wish you'd all just shut the fuck up.

I'm tired of the trod-upon holding up their hands, with teary eyes, begging me for equality, for rights, for what they know, what we all know, are theirs by birth. Stand on your feet. Brush your face clear. There is no victory in supplication. There is no savior here, no way by which your show of meekness, your humble bowing before the mercy of this established order will lead you into the light. Sometimes, you need to stop crying and start fighting.

I'm tired of civil rights movements. From a white man, I'm sure that sounds terrifically superior, but it's true. I'm sick of marching and speeches, of grand displays of affection and steadfast beleif in the universal application of basic rights. I'm tired of artists and con-artists showing their support for whatever group is the loudest in their weeping, melancholy pleas for whatever simple dignity they have been denied. Shut up, stand up.

The truth is, by marching and talking and litigating, you're putting the power in the hands of the very people who have denied you your rights. If you want to marry, then demand it. Don't wail and bemoan what you don't have. Seize it. Expect it. Take your own power, by whatever means necessary, and then the only one you can blame for its misuse is yourself.

I'm tired of feminism. In fact, I'm tired of any group big enough to have a name, an organization, a pristine ideal that's wasted on a black, twisted mass of miscommunication and corruption. Women are equal. Everyone knows that. Even the bigots and the misogynists know that, whether they admit it or not. In fact, if they refuse to admit it, then pull out their tongues and pull off their dicks and let them wander the trailer parks until they bleed out. Do anything, but do not let them decide your own worth.

I'm tired of hearing about how we should all love one another. No, I refuse. I refuse because I already hate you. I don't hate your skin color, or your gender, or your religion, or your country, or your sexual preference, or the cereal you eat. I hate you because you're a hypocrite of the worst kind. No one will ever love every single person. No one can. Even gods (whichever you believe in) have adversaries. Some will always preach hate, and those are as bad as those who preach love. Stop preaching and live. Stop hawking your fucking philosophies and your bullshit anecdotes. Your lies and your fairytales. Love or hate or utter indifference is based on the individual. In a country that exemplifies individuality, why are we painting such an all-encompassing portrait of unrealistic feelings? Shouldn't we embrace the idea that each and every one of us can decide on our own?

I'm tired of gossip. All gossip. Just shut up. If your life is so dull that you need to leech your enjoyment from the lives of others, I think you're technically some kind of succubus.

I'm tired of complaining, most of all. Your horseshit First World problems or your horseshit Third World problems are a poor excuse for conversation. When did discourse become a contest of who has the shittier life? Let's end this little contest and bring the level of public discussion back up to something approaching adulthood, shall we? Besides, listening to all of you brainless mutants and your endless prattling means that I have the shittiest life. There, I win. Game fucking over.


Outrageously Yours,
-SR

Social Networking: You're Doing It Wrong

I don't often post serious things here on the blog. Mostly I find that I don't need to. This is a wacky, creative, fun sort of place. Aside, of course, from the occasional somber piece or a ranting spat of expletives and fine-tuned, if crudely shouted, opinionated prose. I typically reserve more serious topics for my writing blog or, if they've nothing to do with writing, for conversations I have in my everyday life. Of course, by conversations, I mostly mean I talk at Samantha while she patiently nods until I shut up and let her go back to doing whatever it was she was doing before I burst into the room and started haranguing her. I'm needy that way.

I've been thinking, though, and that means you need to hear what I have to say. Needy, you know.

I think I'm doing this social networking stuff all wrong. See, I like Facebook. I like the idea behind it, of letting you keep in touch with family and friends despite the physical space between you, of finding old friends and re-kindling those relationships, of meeting new people and exploring new things, of sharing information and broadening horizons. I like the idea of it, and sites like it, but I don't think I'm utilizing them.

I don't post pictures. In fact, even four years after I left college, almost every picture of me on Facebook is at St. Andrews and just about all of them are Chantal's posts. This isn't because I'm ashamed of my appearance or anything. Anyone who sees or speaks to me knows I'm a fat guy now. I got over worrying about that...well, before I was actually a fat guy. No, I don't post pictures because I don't really see any reason to put them up. Hell, most of the time I don't see any reason to take them in the first place. Does anyone really give a shit what I wore to my mom's house last week? Do you actually want to know what my dinner looked like before I ate it last night?

I usually refrain from status updates as well. I used to think I did it because I had some celebrity-like need for privacy in a world where every living person wanted to know what I was doing at all times. Then I stopped being an idiot and thought I did it because I'm boring and I don't do enough to warrant sharing the news of my daily life with the world. I now know that was equally ridiculous. The real, honest reason is that I just don't want to. Most of my Facebook friends are, probably, not that interested. I know that because I'm not that interested. If I want to know what you're up to, chances are good that I'll ask you. In person. Or in a letter. Or an e-mail. Or a phone call, text, sext, Skype, Instant Message. Whatever.

For me, the problem I have with properly utilizing these social networks is that, frankly, I don't actually care that much. I don't give a shit what your outfits look like or what you had for dinner. I don't care that you got a puppy, and I don't give a single fuck that you hate your job. I just, and forgive my apathy, don't want to know.

Before you smirk, self-satisfied, and assume I'm talking exclusively to people I haven't seen since high school or fringe family that I only added because Facebook makes it harder to ignore requests than just accept them, I mean you. All of you. No matter how dearly I love you, I will never want to see a picture of your meals. I will never care how badly you slept the night before your physical. I do not care how you spent your lunch break.

Listen, it isn't that I don't want to hear about how shitty your day was, or how that awesome concert, walk, political event, afternoon bout of diarrhea, or newborn has impacted your life. I absolutely want to hear about those things. But, I mean, call me. With important stuff. I'm totally free if you just want to chat, but if you wouldn't bring it up in a conversation over the phone, or via text, or any of those other aforementioned methods of communication, why are you posting that shit to Facebook and cluttering up my life with things I will never, ever be interested in, Dad? I mean, uh, everyone.

I guess my issue is just oversharing. The complete saturation of the Internet with things that, well, no one wants to fucking see. A friend of mine raised a good point earlier today about how needy people get because our communication is so widespread and so instantaneous. We all want to be immediately gratified, and when you don't respond in a nanosecond, people will freak the fuck out. We don't take into account that sometimes that friend, or lover, or complete stranger you met at Chipotle last night while you were completely bombed out of your mind on peach schnapps and cheap gin is busy. Maybe they're at work. Or at a school play. Or they got mugged and their phone was stolen, or broken. Maybe they're getting some strange.

Or maybe, and I'm not ashamed of this, they just want to be left the fuck alone for an hour.

I'm not saying you shouldn't be upset if your friend bails on you without so much as a text and leaves you waiting outside the movie theater with two tickets to whatever Owen Wilson is doing these days, but going home and bombarding Facebook with pictures of your cat doing typical cat things isn't going to solve your problem. That's like solving childhood obesity by feeding every elementary school kid a spoonful of laxative with their lunch. Actually, that would be kind of hilarious at first. So your stupid binge-posting is nothing like that. But the horrible, stinky aftermath? That's your Facebook page.

And yes, I am absolutely a hypocrite. Every time I post something here, or on the other blogs, I do immediately upload it to Facebook. Technically, even my rants are hypocritical because I can bitch all I want about my "friends" and their moronic, run-on paragraphs about politics or economics or fucking rap music and how I loathe seeing that crap all over my News Feed, but if I then post that blog to Facebook, am I any better?

Yes, absolutely. Remember, I admitted that I'm needy. That makes it okay.

Right?

Don't take this too far, or too seriously, and stop using Facebook. I don't even think you should emulate me. If you all did that, Facebook would be a very boring place to lurk while I'm pretending to get work done. But stick to the good stuff. And for the love of Odin stay away from intimately personal things. If you chose abortion, maybe keep that off the Internet. It's not edgy or progressive to say those things. It's unnerving to some people, annoying to others, and kind of gross if you're my aunt.

Actually, now that I think of it, I'm not sure the problem is me. Or even you. At least, not those of you reading this (except those of you who post food pictures, because that shit needs to stop). I think the problem is stupid people. The solution, of course, is to just delete those people. Not because I disagree with them, but because they don't belong in such esteemed company.

See? You feed my ego and I'll compliment you. This works out well.

But gods help you if I see one more picture of a cake you made.

Self-righteously Yours,
-S.R.

Large

You've given me words. More appropriately, you've given me back my words. The days and weeks grew stale in my memory, in my imagination, and the rich, verdant worlds grew dark and drab. The endless plains replaced with stretches of grey desert, dead grass and wasted trees. The desiccated husk of a world. The dried up dust of a man.

I'd forgotten the sound of my own pulse. The feel of my own laughter on my tongue. I replaced it with a dry, wracking cough and that old irrational loathing.

Sometimes, we just need a reminder. Sometimes the universe needs to bend away from the dark.

The air is warmer here, and perhaps my mood with it. I've always felt that my chemistry was tied to the earth somehow. I revel in the thunderous temper of a lightning storm. I relish the clear skies and gentle breezes of spring and summer in this part of the world. I prefer to think that it had something to do with you, and those words. Something to do with a picnic, or a secret place, a strange hotel room and a stolen kiss. A missing winter coat or a quiet office.

I don't miss the stark, blank loneliness of it. The bone-deep weariness. The utter, hopeless stretch of road that sprawled out into the distance. The flat, featureless distance.

Today, I feel prolific. I feel breathless and empowered. I feel endless, like deep emerald forests.

Today, I contain multitudes.

Gratefully Yours,
-S.R.

Catching Eyes, or The Utter Silliness

I want to write you endless poems about kissing, dancing, spinning minds and whirlwinds of your fluttering skirts that tease and taunt and catch my eyes. I want to write to impress you, or divest you of your second skin, that I can spread my fingers from your painted toes to your silken tresses, memorizing all the way. Mesmerizing all the way.

I want you to adore me, to restore me to my former glory. Give me starry eyes and I will shower you with light. I want a smile and a fleeting glance, a catch of eyes as if by chance, where I can capture your attention, undivided, for a sliver of a second before I lose you in the crowd. I want to wade through the sea of man until you're in my arms again and laugh until we're drowning in the din.

I want to woo you with a silver tongue that tangles, knots and swells with blood, the moment that your fingers twine with mine. I want to feel a fool and see amusement turn the corners of your mouth up. To catch the glint of innocent laughter in your eyes.

I want to feel you breathe beside me, arms wrapped around my chest, and watch the light of the television dance across your shadowed face. I want your lips to find their way to throat, to jaw, to meet their match and spring their trap. An offer I would never dare refuse. I want your eyes to catch me, like prey trapped in a web, then bare your claws and fangs and have your feast.

I want to rise in threat to overtake your shores and pull you out to sea, then smash your tiny vessel with the gale of my desire. I want to spatter old clichés and turns of phrase until I've made all the blank pages in the world a canvas for you. I want to draw you in and drown you with me, surely I am drowning in this, and the endless ocean's embrace will give you life.

You've caught me at a loss for words, for once, and I am not ashamed.

If I've deranged, or ranged beyond the need for stage and page then I am sincere in the telling, if not always quite compelling. I will sing for you, if you will dance, and if you won't I'll write, perchance, to Chance or fancy.

I've burned in effigy, ephemeral incandescence bursting, evanescent, all my untapped power spent and poured like honey tears. Your eyes are brilliant stars. And such clichés are both a nightmare and a dream. At the risk of sounding silly, I would compile them in compendium and scatter the pages to the wind. Dust, like the ashes of my fathers.

I will glorify you, if nonsensically.

Ebulliently Yours,
-S.R.

Down Where I Am

I can feel myself decaying. A slow, black rot from the inside. Dark moods hang over me like a shroud, and I can taste myself. Rancid, infected, festering. I can almost smell the sick, sweet stink of death. Something is wrong.

I have always flirted with death, always had a sincere fantasy for it. A fascination with the way it would end. I never thought I'd go swiftly. I'm far too strong to die fast. So I fight, clutching at life and death equally, crushing them in my lover's embrace. I will be burned down to ash before they take me and bury me in my grave. I will die hard, and leave a scarred reminder of how I went.

Once, I thought I was bound for greatness. My mind, my strength, my will could somehow change this world. I would do something meaningful. Whether with cunning or storytelling, by seizing power or by writing of those who are powerful. I thought I would be magnificent. I never dreamed of it, because dreams are for those who will live, and death has always been a part of me. But I knew that when I hurled open the gates of Valhalla, I would be welcomed. Now, I feel saddened.

Thoughts of greatness are for the bold, the capable. The infirm, those cursed with this gradual decline and decay, we are no more capable of greatness than the lowest slave. The most base of urges. I will not be welcomed. I will be revolting to my dearest gods.

There is a thinness to my being. Not in flesh or bone, but a thinness nonetheless. The tether that holds me bound to this world, this plane, this realm, is thinning. My body strains through the days, lumbering on in the absence of direction. My sails are in tatters, my rudder is smashed. The ship is taking on water. But it plods on toward shore. Clawing for purchase. Gasping for breath. Labored, straining, and failing.

The land is distant, yet.

Wretchedly Yours,
-S.R.

Obligatory Political Rant

Pay attention, I'm only going to say this shit once. I was going to abstain, honestly, as I have for the last few years. My patience and, frankly my interest, in arguing politics or economics either with idiots or intellectuals has waned until it became nearly non-existent. But, since the current climate is absolutely ruining my social life I feel inclined to just get it all off my chest at once. Like it or not, here we go.

I would like to begin with an assurance. I will not post these thoughts on Facebook. Not individually. I'll link to my blog. Because that's what blogs are for. I don't want to read your thoughts on politics on Facebook, because for some reason, possibly due to the underlying narcissism of the human psyche, posting those ideas on Facebook makes you an arrogant jackass. The next ranting status that the Internet shoves down my throat that starts with something like "Can someone please tell me why...." and goes on to some rhetorical fucking question just hawking your bullshit agenda will make my eyes literally burst out of my skull. If you do that to me, I will find you and I will pull out your spine and feed it to your god damned dog.

If you want to post videos, hell if you want to start a discussion on Facebook or, gods help us, Twitter, feel free. But for fucks sake, please proofread it first. Just make sure you don't sound like an asshole.

Now that we've gotten that unpleasant business out of the way, lets away to the arrogance!

Vote for Obama. Seriously, guys, is this even a thing we need to talk about? We're all functioning alcoholic adults here. Do I really need to go into all of this Romney camp telling women what they can and can't do with their bodies? Or the tax evasion? Or the lies about Medicaid? Or the fact that he hasn't really given us any idea of what his policies are going to be excepting "the opposite of Obama?"

I do? Alright, fine.

Look, Obama caught flak for not making his birth certificate public. Which, by the way, it was. Those things are public record. You could look it up with a little responsible research. I know they didn't immediately release it on Fox News and CNN (although they did, eventually) but, really? Are we that lazy? So, in the interest of fairness I suppose that whole unfortunate business with Romney's taxes had to happen, but I still don't agree with it. I'm firmly against this nosy, busy-body, fucking Gossip Girl society we've become, but I let it go. He eventually made that information public and, to no one's great surprise, we were all right. He wasn't paying fairly.

But why do we care? Look, the President doesn't actually have much influence on economics. If he's cheating on his own taxes, good for him. But that doesn't really impact his ability to do the job. I wouldn't vote for the guy, but I think we can let this one slide.

On the other hand, he clearly misunderstands the way money works. See, the big issue I have with the right-wing in this, and Romney and his ilk specifically, is the way they keep harping on the money we owe China. They want to scare you. "The defecit is huge! It's bigger than ever!" Well, not exactly. See, figuring for global inflation, the deficit isn't that scary, and it isn't that outlandish. The entire world's economy took a hit. Everyone owes everyone money. They try to frighten you with doomsday ideas about China calling us up and being all "Hey, can we get that money back?" like America is everyone's broke friend and the favors have run out. That's just not the case.

Do you know what would happen if China asked for their money back? Our economy would collapse. The immediate consequences of that? China's economy would collapse. Catastrophically. See, China is going through the same modernization process America went through sixty years ago. The difference is that American industry was fairly self-sufficient. We were inventing these things and manufacturing them at the same time. China's economy is mostly manufacturing now, but they aren't inventing anything new. They're making money by building and selling things we already created. They do it cheaper, which means they get the business. The same way contractors bid for jobs.

You see, we're not a manufacturing based economy anymore. We've been edging away from that for thirty years. America is a service based economy. We're buyers and sellers of services, information, technology. We don't need to manufacture because we're spreading the wealth around. That's how capitalism works. It spreads, grows, and advances. We have the power in this case because we're buying the goods. If we played more aggressively, could we buy them cheaper? Probably. But it wouldn't earn us many lasting trade relationships. It's a delicate balance.

Why does this come up in politics though? Economics is decided by companies and people. Not politicians. Legislation affects it, sure, but the bulk of the economy isn't going to change because Romney thinks we should manufacture our own shit. It isn't his call. Guys, Presidents don't do economics. In fact, go ask a politician to explain the economy to you. If he isn't a lying bag of shit, chances are he'll shrug and tell you that, quite frankly, he can't. No one can. Why are we trying to simplify something like that? The balance is delicate. Over simplify and you will risk ruining it. And looking like a total douche.

Let's talk about abortion. Hell, let's do gay marriage and aboriton and sex education and drugs and crime all at once. I've said, for about eight years, that the issue with gay marriage is that gay marriage is an issue at all. Its none of my business. If I, as a straight man, can choose to forego marriage at all, then why can't a gay couple choose for themselves? Let's stop with this sanctity of marriage bullshit too. Marriage has never been a sanctuary. It has never, fucking ever, been universally sacred. If you try to give me an example of a sacred marriage, I will punch you in the dick with ten examples of the opposite. Marriage is wonderful, for those happy few that make the choice and find someone they can truly enter that bond with. It's a beautiful gesture. But that's it. It's a gesture. It's an agreement. A contract. If both partners don't fulfill it, then the whole thing is a wash. Love each other, and do it your own way. Don't let some fuck-off lawmaker tell you any different. It's a free country.

Stop talking about abortion. Just stop it. It's none of your business what she does or doesn't do with her body and her child. If you really want to stop abortions, how about we pass some laws about comprehensive sex education, so kids know what they're getting into? How about we make healthcare affordable enough (thanks, Obama, for already trying that, sorry the American public didn't see it) that those same kids have somewhere to turn that isn't the free fucking clinic?

Then, how about we do something about these skanks that just use abortion as a contraceptive? Those are the ones you should be concerned with. Not the rape victims, or the parents that don't believe in bringing a child into the world that will lead a short, painful life, or the ones that would die during childbirth because of something we could detect early enough to avoid it. Leave those women the fuck alone. The skanks? How about you force them to live with their own mistakes? How about you show them how to be adults, rather than pampered little cum dumpsters? There's a god damned law for you.

Legalize pot. But, do it in such a way that the glamor goes away. I smoke pot. Hell, a lot of people smoke pot. Occasionally. Or often. Or daily. Look, it isn't any worse for you than half the things we're allowed to do already. Besides, if you legalize it, and pass the requisite laws governing the sale and taxation of it, all those douchebags with the the backwards visors and sandals and Bob Marley t-shirts and acoustic guitars will go back into their bedrooms and shut the fuck up. That's all I want. That, and to not be denied a job or thrown in jail because I have a joint's worth of weed in my pocket or my urine. I don't drive drunk, I won't drive high. People like me, with that mentality (read: almost all of us) will be quite alright with legal weed.

Let's stop with mandatory minimums for horeshit crimes. Really, guys, it's getting old. Prisons are crowded, clearly that system isn't working. Let's do something new. Gladiator battles, maybe. Public executions. Something old might work. Or, maybe, take violent criminals and put them in a capsule and launch them into the fucking sun. There's an idea. Rapist? Boom, Sun Cannon. Murderer? Boom, Sun Cannon. Beat your wife and kids? Did they deserve it? Eh, Sun Cannon. At the very least, send them off to Africa where they can die a slow, agonizing AIDS death or be eaten by something horrifying.

Look, altogether, I'm just tired of politics. I'm tired of hearing about it. I don't want to know your opinions. If I did, I'd watch the major news network (or, for some of you, the minor extremist publications and radio stations) that fed it to you. If you're that passionate, read up on your personal issues and get involved in a way that makes a difference. Talk candidly and honestly and, most important, calmly with people that share your views and those that disagree. Form a complete idea before you go spitting nonsense into the Internet. That's my job.

People won't all agree with you. I'm a fairly middle-minded kind of guy, overall. Modest on some things, extreme on others (see the Sun Cannon). Conservative here, liberal there. But if you speak with confidence, with the ability to articulate rather than ramble and scowl and call names and be just a huge twat, you might at the very least get some respect for your opinions.

Until you can do that, please shut the fuck up.

If you'd like to engage me in a conversation, feel free to do so here. If you do so elsewhere, I will come to your house and personally punch you in kidney.

Yours,
-S.R.

Dreaming

She finds me in my dreams, when I'm vulnerable. She slink about in the shadowed nooks of my mind, flitting from sight whenever my thoughts catch her picking locks on doors and peeking into pools of memory. She flees and no matter how I chase her, she always escapes. A phantasmic beauty.

Until I fall asleep.

When I dream she's a warrior, adrift in a maelstrom. The wind batters her on the deck of a ship, certain to dash itself on the crest of a wave and sink. She howls into the storm like some mad pirate, her bow drawn, arrow nocked, as serpentine creatures rise from the roiling sea to snatch at her. She fires, draws, fires again, hurtling insults and arrows into the storm and its monsters. Her clothes cling to her milky skin and rain runs over her in rivulets like unbridled flood water. At first I think she is afraid, that she screams from fear of the monsters and the storm, but I'm wrong. This woman fears nothing. She screams defiance. She screams a challenge and the sea is at her mercy.

When I dream she is lost somewhere and I am searching for her, chasing her across lakes and fields or through narrow halls that seem to branch out forever. I find her in a washed out world of greys and blurred scenery, a kind of half-world that exists solely as a backdrop for her. In this dream she isn't a woman at all. She's a tiger. The half-light casts shadows between her shoulderblades as she stalks a circle around me, makes her stripes seem to move and slither along her thick, muscular frame. Her mouth seems massive as she leaps at me, pins me to the ground. A tremendous black hole. Something inescapable. She is powerful, predatory, and exhilarating.

When I dream she is asleep in my bed. The sun drifts in through the window and slips its golden fingers through her hair. She smells sweet, slightly flowery, and I am hesitant to wake her. There is a serenity about this dream, something I very rarely feel, and I am loathe to spoil it, but a touch of my fingertips on one bare shoulder won't hurt. A light kiss on the forehead. Her eyes flutter open, and so do mine.

When I dream we make love with a vicious mix of passion and carnality. There is a dizzying, heady mixture of lust and violence, of desire and destruction. Two predators with claws and teeth and soft, supple lips. Her voice echoes in my head, a series of whispers and screams and deep, throaty moans. Filthy, debaucherous things and bright, mellifluous things. My name hangs on her lips, clawing for purchase as if it wants to force itself back down the throat that uttered it. In the midst of it I am probably screaming unintelligible things, pouring words into her ear and dangling precariously close to falling in myself when she bucks, back arching and drags her nails over my back as if trying to peel me from the spine.

When I'm awake, and alert, she is hidden from me. But when I sleep, there is no escaping her.

Dreamily Yours,
-S.R.

Two Faces

I am the storm as it walks across the desert. I am power uncontained. Unstoppable. Inexorable. Irresistible. I will roll over your home and your city and your body like the apocalypse, burning and pillaging, a great horde of destruction. I am a mass of muscle all tensing at once and lunging forward. I will snatch you by the throat and swallow you. Whole.

I will find you in your darkest hour, while you dangle from the edge of some nightmarish place, neither whimpering or screaming for help. Perhaps you're much too proud. Perhaps you don't know that you need it. Perhaps, you prefer the fall. But I like to wander those vile places, and the pale skin against the ink black depths excite me. I know a way out of here, for you at least. Come, let me show you the way.

Try as you might, there is no escape from me. Struggle, yes! Fight, kick, scream as I engulf you. Punch me in the larynx while I devour you. What's a few bruises to a full belly? Inside me is a world the likes of which you have never seen, and whether it is your tomb or your playground, there will be pleasure and pain beyond your reasoning. I will lash your body to a stone in the storm and I crash over you. Thunder and light. Wind and rain. Whips and ball gags. We're locked in a contest, you and I, and only one of us walks away.

Your hands are shaking. That's normal, rest assured. You've been clinging to the cliffs for so long, that your fingers have forgotten how to stretch. Go ahead, open them, show me your palms. You've a few cuts and bruises, a deep gash that runs along your forearm, some burns littered across your abdomen. Don't worry, we'll fix that. I'll fix everything. Just follow me. It's uphill, I know, and you're tired, but if it gets too steep I'll carry you. Just relax now, you're safe.

You thought you were inside me, until I penetrated you. What gave me away? The snarl? The bared teeth? The sudden fear is such a rush. The widening eyes, the way your hands, bound and scraped and bloody, suddenly turn to claws. The way you fight me anew, rolling and roiling like the boiling sea in hell. Your body heaves into me, thrashing and beating, but I'm so much stronger. You're already so weak from fighting that this is no challenge for me. I've done this for ages and you, poor thing, are no match. The storm crashes down around you and floodwaters rise, threatening to drown you and, at last, submission. Resign yourself to me, and you may yet survive.

There it is, just as I promised. The mouth of a cave. I told you I knew the way out. It wasn't so hard, not when you had help. From here on, you'll have to go alone. My part is to lead you from the dark place, but this is where I stay. You go on, the sun is out and the air is clean. There are dangers out there, but you'll be safe to navigate them now. Just cross the desert and you'll find a sprawling forest full of game and cool, clear water, and people that will take you in. Beware the storms in the desert. Take shelter when they come. Remember me, and what we shared, and you will thrive.

Uncertainly Yours,
-S.R.

This Too Shall Pass (or, You Shall Not Pass!)

This is the year where hope fails you...


This year has been...less than spectacular so far, I'll admit. Things were working out alright. I was out on my own, with a solid friend and roomate, making good money, doing my thing. In the last six weeks, though, things have taken a pretty ridiculous nosedive. I was suspended over some horseshit accusations, then the company went bottom-up and left my parents, four siblings, my roomate, and myself completely without jobs overnight. It took six weeks to get unemployment to pay me. My sister is back in the hospital. I have to go to a family barbecue next week. Its a nightmare.

Then again, I'm not complaining.

See, I wouldn't trade this for anything. Not all the money in the world, man. No fucking way. My bills are getting paid, at least for the moment, and the money from that job never really mattered to me that much. It was a means to an end. But when I really look at it, that place was taking all the best out of us all. We're intelligent, capable people, why are we wasting time in a place that can't (through no fault of its own, really) appreciate that? Why work 90 hour weeks when we could find something else that paid just fine and only work 40? Because that wasn't an option before. It was always "I'll look at it on my day off....next week" or "This might be great but I can't take a pay cut" or "Gosh, if only I had the time to do this". Well, those aren't issues anymore. We all have time to pursue the things we want to do, rather than settling for what comes up first. We're all in a better place, I think, and I can't imagine better people to be stuck here with.

Speaking of people, I want to thank you.

I'm not, I find, really cut out for a regular life. Nothing about it appeals to me, emotionally or intellectually. Finding a job, settling down, getting married. It seems great and I have some friends that are very happy that way. Russ and Cathryn (whose last names I won't mention but whose initials are absolutely Bauer) are incredible people that found each other, marked their territory, and mated for life. I love them both, more dearly than I know how to say, and I love their bond and their happiness. I hope they live forever that way.

It just isn't for me. I like paying bills. I like having responsibilities to keep me grounded. But I need open roads and blank pages. I need plane tickets and midnight truck stops and strange hotels in strange cities. I need to move and not be constrained. So, sure, I'll pay my rent and my insurance and I'll need some income to do all of these things but, when it comes right down to it, writing and music have always appealed to me so much because I'm just not made to stay static.

So that's what I'm doing. I'm sitting here, getting my unemployment, looking for writing jobs and, in the meantime, planning my adventures. I'm starting a second blog devoted to my writing. I'm starting a novel while I edit two (maybe three) others. I'm tuning up my banjo and singing and, by the fucking gods, I'm living the life I need to live because, for the first time, I feel like I can.

I want to thank you for understanding that even when I didn't. I've been told, never directly or in such detail, by a dozen people over the years that this is what I was meant to do. The writing and the traveling and that life. I need to tell stories. I need it. That's what I'm built for. I'm made to talk and write and make people laugh. I'm here to rely on and be relied on by this group of people that give me more than any partner ever could. My friends, my family, and I have this deep, unbridled love that is exactly what I need to sustain myself. So that's what I'll do.

The thing that I love about my closest friends is the ambiguous relationship we have. People that would be just as comfortable with passionate sex at three in the morning in a hotel room in Cincinnati as they would be borrowing ten bucks for gas during a tight week, or discussing the merits of teaching Shakespeare's comedies rather than the same old Romeo and Juliet fare at every high school in the world over a cup of coffee and a pack of smokes. I don't have platonic relationships because I'm not platonic. Its always just a little bit romantic, a little bit sexual, completely innocent (naturally) but something special. Something not many people share. Thank you for that. Thank you so hard.

What I'm getting at is simply be thankful for what you have and don't let the world get in your way. Things will work out as they will, the wheel weaves as the wheel wills, there will be water if god wills it, the word is the law is ka. That sort of thing. Learn who you are and learn to love it, because this life is pretty fucking awesome, if you ask me.

Ecstatically Yours,
-S.R.

On Writing, or, Nerdgasm Central

I'm a writer. There, I said it. It is somewhat liberating, declaring yourself something other than human. I'm other things, sure, an alchoholic for instance, but none of them are quite as profound or (in a grim, drug-addled sort of way) as romantic as being a writer. Or maybe all of those other things are part of what make me a writer. Alchoholism is certainly prevalent in our collective imaginations of writers. Anyway. The point is, I'm a writer. I didn't need to tell you that, because you probably know me. And if you don't know me, you'd assume I'm a writer because I have a blog and that blog uses clever pop-culture and nerdgasm-inducing literature references and an array of impressive words.  But I didn't say it because you needed to be told, I said it because I needed to be told.

See, I've strayed for some time and that's terrible. I forgot that in addition to all of the fancy poetic ideas like talent and ability, writing also requires more mundane things like work and dedication. I strayed. Then, like a space shuttle without enough fuel to escape the gravity well, I came hurtling back. All is well again. Kinda.

You must understand that I've relied on nicotine to help my process for more than twelve years. I've come to rely on it and, in a self-perpetuating cycle, used writing as an excuse not to give up smoking. As a bit of an aside, don't let that fool you. I genuinely enjoy smoking. However, recent circumstances have thrust it upon me and I've found myself without it. So I sat down to write and, for the first time, came up blank.

What the fuck?

I've used it for so long, smoking and writing fueling one another, that they became somewhat fused in my head. I couldn't do one without the other (this was a two-way street. If you've ever seen me smoke heavily, I was writing. Or drinking. Usually both, although one of them may have been just in my mind.). So I decided to sit down and piece my brain back together because, as I said before, I am a writer and that means I need to write. Its a fundemental function of my continued existence.

I decided to look at what drives me first. What makes me want to write? What fuels that creative muscle? What pushes me to sit for hours and lose myself in a story or a poem or a blog or hate mail? I set smoking aside. Honestly, that idea is old and its somewhat ridiculous. I understand the chemical benefits of nicotine, but that's not what makes me want to write. Once past that roadblock, I came up with some pretty awesome stuff. Shit. Sorry, I went two full paragraphs without inserting any vulgarity. I have a reputation to uphold here, guys. Anyway.

I love to read. I can easily get distracted by television or a movie, and become engrossed in what's happening, but that's a shallow sort of distraction as complete as it might seem. No, what really catches my attention and gets me going is a good novel. Now, I like the classics and I dig the epic poets and playwrights too, but if I want something to really blow me away, something I'll read over and over again just for the pure joy of reading it, I'm going with Fantasy.

There are some exceptions, of course. Of my top ten favorites of all time, only a handful are fantasy (that list is dominated by Orson Scott Card's Ender's Game, David Wong's John Dies at the End, Milton's Paradise Lost, and Whitman's Leaves of Grass although I admit I strayed a little from the "novel" criteria there and that is by no means indicative of the rest of the top ten). However, of the hundreds of books I own an overwhelming majority of them are Fantasy. I'll dive into anything from shared worlds like Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms to the epic sagas like Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time or Stephen King's Dark Tower (which I put on equal footing with some of the epic sagas we teach in English Literature classes worldwide) to the old sword-and-sorcerery paperbacks or the new, gritty subgenres filled out by guys like John Marco and Brandon Sanderson.

So it should come as little surprise, I suppose, that I write primarily Fantasy. Other writers, I find, give me that push needed to sit and write, among other things I'll get into later. In fact, I used to scoff at the idea that one could take inspiration to write fantasy from anything but other Fantasy writers. I was, clearly, wrong. Margaret Weiss, for instance, is one of the most successful novelists in the genre and she adamantly doesn't read Fantasy. Perhaps because she feels it would be too easy to lift ideas from other writers in the genre. That's sort of an issue with fantasy. Any review you read of a popular new novel will harp on how it defies the typical genre stereotypes. Fantasy writers have gotten such a bad rap for so long about their voices and their work all sounding the same that, in the last fifteen years or so, the genre has exploded with fresh ideas simply because the novelists are trying explicitly to be different from one another. Stephen King originally started thinking of his Dark Tower novels while reading Tolkien, but set them aside for years, literally, so he wouldn't simply regurgitate what he'd just read.

Alright, so some of it comes from reading but getting everything from reading, even reading a wide variety of things, is dangerous. So what else? What else brings me to that place?

Well, video games. See, games have become this really captivating medium for telling insane stories. They've taken on a breadth and depth that put them on par, I think, with films, plays, and novels. Not all of them, of course, and there are still those that try and fail, but games like Mass Effect or Elder Scrolls or Saints Row have set the stage for things to come. It doesn't matter, the story is what grips me and makes me want to write. That and some of the badass action sequences. My stories are always visceral, I think, filled with physical conflict, and I like to be somewhat cinematic in how I portray that violence. That visual aspect, I think, is lacking from a great deal of written media.

Okay, good, so you can throw films in there as well. Athough, honestly, mostly science fiction films. I'm not sure why, but they really get me moving. Now, as I was having these epiphanies I started wading through some of my writing, trying to focus on where I could start to try and organize things, put them on a track for success. I also read through Stephen King's On Writing. If you haven't, I strongly suggest you pick it up. Writer or not, its a fantastic read and it includes all manner of really awesome information. Such as some very useful tips on keeping yourself disciplined, organized, and how to come back to writing after you;ve been away (in King's case because of a nearly-fatal car crash and, years prior, kicking some insane drug addiction-in my case, lack of ciggarettes).

So what else? What other nuggets of wisdom did I glean?

Dr. David Bell, Novelist Extraordinaire, (one day I'm going to talk him into paying me for referring to him that way) taught me two very important things. Well, actually a series of very important things but a number of those had to do with re-enacting various 80s kung-fu montages and they're neither here nor there. What he taught me about writing, though, cannot be understated. I've heard it from a thousand places but for some reason when he said it, it stuck: Write what you know.

That doesn't mean don't branch out and learn. I'm constantly researching horses and sailing and sub-atomic physics for my writing. It means write what you know and expand upon it. The other extremely important thing he taught me, by the way (and this is in all seriousness, I still have the e-mails to prove it) was that if I could just "learn how to punctuate the fucking dialogue [I'd] have a career in writing"(I'm paraphrasing, and I'm not doing it using MLA format because I'm a grown-up and I don't have to). Sound advice, and something I look back on frequently to keep myself grounded.

So what do I know? What's the final thing that gets me writing?

Fucking metal.

Look, I love music. I'm a big fan of tons of genres, tons of styles. I keep an open mind on things, and if its really music I can at least respect what an artist is doing, even if I don't particularly enjoy it. That said, as much as I respect and enjoy, say, Eminem, I can't write it. Metal though, holy fuck.

I think metal and fantasy have this really amazing relationship, for one thing. Both are composed of literally dozens of fractured subgenres all trying to gain ground and stand on their own, while being simultaneously united by a common thread, or as critics are fond of calling them, tropes and stereotypes. Both metal and fantasy, first and foremost, owe their real genesis to aged (or dead) men from England decades ago, and fuck you if you don't think that's the truth.

Both have expanded dramatically in popularity in the last two decades, as well as broadening in scope. Both have distinct subgroups, and both have groups among them that are intensely dark (black/death/viking/blackened death metal vs. gritty, bloody fantasy like Brian Ruckley's Godless World Trilogy), while also retaining their lighter sides (Edguy, for example. Kender, for another).

Also, has anyone ever looked into how many metal bands have written songs about fantasy novels, characters, short stories, ideas, or wet dreams? Fucking all of them. Seriously. Look into it. Bands like Rhapsody (or Rhapsody of Fire, I guess, I'm not sure which one they go by now) have created their own fantasy universe specifically to write songs about it. Nightwish's entire brilliant career has been all about Tuomas Holopainen's fascination with Tolkien, Dragonlance, Disney, and hot scandanavian women (only poetically, of course).

I am the opposite. Rather than the fantasy obsesssed metal musician, I'm a metal-obsessed fantasy writer. In fact, every major piece of fiction I've written (and most of my poems that aren't influenced by either vaginas or alchohol, honestly) has been, to some degree or another, insipred directly by the lyrics, artwork, or general atmosphere of a metal song. I have playlists on my media player that I listen to while I write, organized by the type of scene I'm working on. Seriously. I'm writing an entire novel based on a handful of lyrics from Blind Guardian and Amon Amarth and a dream I had about my dear friend Courtney (who has, through her work and mine, taught me some incredible things about writing) where she totally killed the fuck out of a sea-monster. Fucking metal.

So what I'm saying is simply: I'm back from the dead, assholes. *laser sounds*

Serendipitously Yours,
-S.R.

P.S,- I thought of including lists of my favorite books, albums, and games here (both because I'm a narcicist and because I have this wierd compulsion to list things that my parents will absolutely vouche for) so if anyone would like to indulge me, go ahead and let me know. I'll add it in edits.

Break-up Letters Part 2

I can wax poetic and make you look pathetic. I'm not so sympathetic I can't still be diarrhetic. Cause I'll make you shit with my rhetoric and I'll make you sick to your stomach, bitch, and if you can't sit down and you can't spit then I'll split you straight through the guts with this.  I'll be pedantic, but predictable, all the while still irresistable, or miserable, dismissable, and yet, infinitely kissable. I'm cruel and foolish, leave you drooling, stupidly staring at the ceiling, feeling, reeling, bent on stealing breath and bet that I ain't missed yet, I'm caught in your throat and I'll break your neck. So sit the fuck down til you're next on deck.

I go from exotically erotic to neurotically despotic, despondent to resplendent, dependent to indispensable. Indefensible, ultimately reprehensible. I'll fetch you low and scratch your bones, burrow deep down in and find you home. I can spit you out like blood in my mouth, turn your insides out and make your women bow down.

You can come at me but I'll finish you, diminish you, replenish you just to get at you. You can leave or die, but its yours to choose. I have no appetite for destruction, I'm the epitome, so you're shitting me if you think running your lips means dick to me. Cause I'll tear your fucking head off and not even blink, I'll gut you like a trout, boy, so don't even think that you can come around, settle down, and flap off your gums, or I will shatter your teeth, just keep on sucking your thumb. I'm the stuff that makes your nightmares, and leaves you shitting your pants, so you can gamble on your life with me, but you don't have a chance.

Devastatingly Yours,
-S.R.

Keeping Myself Alive

Of all the myriad things that make me murderously angry, being told how to live is the foremost. I understand my lifestyle doesn't suit everyone. The 70-80 hour workweek, the hours of solitary writing. The drinking. The banjo. The Xbox. I get it. My friends are mostly settling down or settled down. Most of them are married, or raising children, or both. Even my siblings have mostly grown into their adult lives. Me? I'm single. I'm living at home. I'm paying off my debts and spending the rest of my money going out and spending time with my friends. In short, I'm happy. If you think you know some way I could be happier, by all means suggest it to me.

But if you think the way I've chosen to live is in some way invalid, inappropriate, or incorrect, kindly go fuck yourself.

If I wanted advice, I would ask for it. If I wanted a girlfriend, I'd find one. Truth is, the older I get the more I think that life isn't for me. I'm too self-involved, too into my writing and my music and my free time. I like having the freedom to do whatever I want at practically any time. I don't need to share myself with someone, and that works just fine for me. I have friends. This small, beautiful handful of indescribably incredible people that are everything I could ask for and then some. Part friend, part lover, part companion, part sidekick, part superhero. There's laughter in these relationships like nothing I've ever known. There's support and comaraderie and sex and passion and alchohol and conflict and, above all, there's love. This vast, unfathomable thing that occasionally slams into the chest and leaves you gasping, clawing at the air as if it will help replenish the breath that was forced from your lungs. What is having a partner all about if not those things? And I have them, almost a dozen times over I have them. People get used to how intense a relationship with me can be or they quickly decide not to be my friend. That's it.

I'd like to change some things here and there, and I'm moving toward doing that, but I'm doing it because I want to. Because it will make me feel good. I don't need to compromise because I'm  taking someone else's feelings, or goals, or capabilities into account. I don't need to worry about that. I can be impulsive. I can make my lists of pros and cons. I can go either way I want, because at the end of the day its my decision.

Likewise, if you don't care for the people I've surrounded myself with, you can see your way out any time. I don't judge you based on the people in your life, please refrain from doing that to me. Or, most assuredly, I'll fucking kill you. I'm self-involved, like I said, but those people are, everyone, important to me. And before you spit any kind of poison their way, think about how hard it will be to run your mouth with no teeth left in it. If that's not a deterrent, I'm sure we could peel your eyelids back and show you one.

I'm a private person, by nature, so the fact that I've allowed you to get close to me should be an indication. It should indicate that maybe, just maybe, you're not the only one I saw some worth in. That maybe those other people in my circle are beyond your need to judge and defame. If you're not in that circle, well, now maybe you have some idea about the cause.

Either way, the point of this was mostly a reassurance. I'm happy. Really, I'm more content than I have been in quite some time. If that doesn't show, I apologize. And if that doesn't suit you, well, fuck you.

Gloriously Yours,
-S.R.