Monday, November 18, 2013

Where Have I Been?

They say it’s not over until the fat lady sings…but what if she sits on you first and doesn’t seem to care about singing at all? Isn’t that kind of debilitating, too? Wouldn’t that almost be like it was over? I mean, you’d just have to lay there and struggle for breath and all kinds of unpleasant other stuff. You wouldn’t be able to do much but gasp for air and maybe scream for help, depending on exactly where and how said fat lady was sitting on you.

That said where have I been? Good question. No good answer.

I’d like to say that life has been so wonderful and busy that I simply haven’t had the time and/or the energy to “blog”, which if one thinks about sounds kinda dirty. (“Danny, are you blogging…again? Here, read this verse in the Bible and repent of your sins.” “But Mommy, blogging isn’t a sin.” “Don’t give me that New Age Bull Hockey…if Jesus didn’t do it, it’s a sin!”)

The truth is time simply got away from me, and there really is no good reason why it did. Somehow Time just broke its chain in the back yard, running happily up the mountain and into the woods only to get lost. Fortunately, I found it, having wrapped its leftover chain in some thick brush around the trunk of a tree, and was able to bring it home, nurse it back to health and nail that sucker back in place to hopefully not get away again.

Honestly, I did think about it. I actually sat down several times but well…it sucked and this may very well suck but here I am and here it is. My what-do-you-call-it, thingy with the computer icons on it, is full of attempts, unfinished okay, unfinished awful and unfinished what the heck was I thinking; most of it, on a reread, only leading me to the conclusion that I can’t spell, never actually comprehended grammar or punctuation and am just this side of clinically insane.

There was a time when blogging was more important to me than anything. But I came to realize that it wasn’t the words or the communication, which is what writing, blogging, sex and chronic germaphobia are all really about, that had become important to me. It was the numbers. How many people are reading? How many people are responding? Put your left foot in. Put your left foot out.

The bottom line was that I didn’t care about being a good writer, or the catharsis I had convinced myself it was. What I wanted was to be a part of the cool clique in high school. I wanted to be popular. I wanted to be asked to the prom by the head of the football team. I wanted it to lead to something that would make my life a little less miserable…mundane…fill in your own word here…if nowhere else but in my head, of which I wanted said head to become gynormously huge and pretty, vacuous but pretty just like all the other cheerleaders in the Junior Class. (I’m not egotistical enough to aim for the Senior Class.)

I wanted to be doing what everyone else was doing. I was one of many jumping off the cyber-cliff because all my friends were doing it. Of course, no one told me that unless it truly meant something more than the hit graph I was checking way too often then it really meant nothing at all.

I guess we are all guilty of doing things simply for a superficial outcome, but I’m not competing for Miss America and I don’t have Ireland Baldwin to defend my actions. In the last year I have had a few examples that made me wake up, realize and question much of the motivation behind most my motivations.

One can truly believe something with every facet of their being but not realistically actualize it. If nothing else, in the past year or so, I have learned that if you give a piece of yourself away with an expected outcome than you might as well not have given it away, as it means absolutely nothing at all. I had been looking down on those who gave to charity only for the tax write off, those who helped others only to expect something in return including having the community murmur, “Ooh look how they have sacrificed.” And never felt the least bit guilty for doing the same exact thing myself only dressed up in a different cyber package.

Sometimes God has to hit me in the head with a brick. In this case he had to hit me several times, bash my skull open and then pee on the gaping mass of brain matter to wake me up. Finally he made me understand that it matters not that someone in Gambia reads this and is moved to minor fits of giggle and major shifts in their general Third World psyche, it just matters that I do it.

Granted, I hope someone reads it. I hope someone enjoys it, but it is no longer important that the masses read it and tell their friends who read it and in turn make me the most sought after writer/philosopher/sex symbol in the modern world...or at least more popular than the Hudson Brothers.

Now I will admit here that I would give quite a bit to be the roach on the counter if someone should dash breathlessly into Barnes & Noble and gush, “Do you have the latest ChickenDancing? PLEASE, tell me you have the latest ChickenDancing!” Just to see the look on the poor boogers face behind the customer service desk and see how they respond. I also wouldn’t turn down an invitation to save daytime television, be invited to be the guest on Jimmy Fallon that everyone will be searching YouTube for the next day, or maybe be on “Dancing With the Stars” (in this case “Dancing With Who the Hell Is That”) but it’s neither expected or hoped for.

All I want these days is to mush it up from my heart, into my head and let it out through my fingers, once again that coming out just a little dirtier than I had intended. Regardless…

The chicken resumes dancing on…