Time

The photo above was my entry for the Single Frame Stories last week. The prompt for the story was "time". I was thinking of Bukowoski's poem air and light and time and space: 

no baby, if you’re going to create

you’re going to create whether you work

16 hours a day in a coal mine...

baby, air and light and time and space

have nothing to do with it

and don’t create anything

except maybe a longer life to find

new excuses

for.

Satan

I saw this on a shirt today in SL: "Satan worships me." I rather liked it. I'm thinking I should make a shirt that says "The Lindens refer to me as a god."

I Didn't Mean To

Let them think what they liked, but I didn't mean to drown
myself. I meant to swim till I sank -- but that's not the same
thing.
-Joseph Conrad, The Secret Sharer

Sympathetically Loathsome

Sympathetically loathsome is how the character for Walter White in Breaking Bad is described. If you're not familiar with the series, it's a about a high school chemistry teacher that contracts lung cancer. He fears dying and leaving his family impoverished. He has a disabled teenage son and his forty something wife is pregnant with their second child. To earn some fast cash he goes into business with one of his former students, making methamphetamine, commonly known as meth, and selling it.

He's not mentally weak though. He's extraordinarily tough. A few dead bodies doesn't bother him, even a couple of dead children.There's one memorable scene where he's getting a checkup to see if his cancer has returned and he's talking with a fellow cancer patient in the waiting room:

To hell with your cancer. I’ve been living with cancer for the better part of a year. Right from the start, it’s a death sentence. That’s what they keep telling me. Well, guess what? Every life comes with a death sentence, so every few months I come in here for my regular scan, knowing full well that one of these times - hell, maybe even today - I’m gonna hear some bad news. But until then, who’s in charge? Me. That’s how I live my life. 

If you were confronted with the same choice, what would you do?

Confession

I saw someone's profile tonight, that said "if we're not here to have fun, than why are we here?" For me, I think it's loneliness. I come to SL to tell my stories. It gives meaning and purpose to my otherwise dull and meaningless life.

New Year Resolution

This year, I'm setting the bar high. My goal is to not die. To somehow survive until 2014. I think I may need to take that approach to daily life and say a little prayer each day at midnight "whew, survived another day."

Sadness

He walked leaning over, hands in his pockets, eyes
on the ground. If he had had a tail, it would have been
dragging.

Merry Christmas

Anybody who acted happy on Christmas was lying.
-Hunter S. Thompson

Christmas Eve

It's Christmas eve, and I'm wondering what I should do. Should I go out or just stay home? I'm kind of a party animal, so I guess I'll go out for a bit.

What's It Like Inside the Bubble?

What's it like inside the bubble?
Does your head ever give you trouble?
-Help Is On It's Way, Little River Band

Saw a castle in a bubble at McCoy Island. I was there for the karaoke event and saw the castle outside. It's a huge castle with a theater inside.

More Light

It's December 22, 2012, the day with the greatest amount of darkness in the northern hemisphere. At latitudes above the article circle, the sun never rises. After this date, the days began to get longer in the northern hemisphere until the summer solstice in June. So it's a day to celebrate the returning of more sunlight.The darkness will not last forever:

Goethe’s final words: more light.

Ever since we crawled out of that primordial slime, that’s been our unifying cry: more light.

Sunlight, torchlight, candlelight, neon, incandescent, light to banish the darkness from our caves, to illuminate our roads, the insides of our refrigerators. Big floods for the night games at Soldier’s Field, little tiny flashlights for those books we read under the covers when we’re supposed to be asleep, light is a metaphor.

Thy word is a lamp unto my feet. Rage, rage against the dying of the light! Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom, lead thou me on. The night is dark and I am far from home, lead thou me on. Arise, shine, for thy light has come. Light is knowledge, light is life, light is light.

The above is a transcript from this video clip.  It's a scene from the annual winter solstice celebration in a fictional town in Alaska. May there be more light in your life in 2013.

End of the World

It's now mere hours to the rumored end of the world based upon the ancient Mayan calendar. If I don't hear from you again, I want you to know that I've loved blogging for both of you. If we do wake up tomorrow, it will be the most beautiful day ever.

The Shining City

SL is a shining city built on rocks stronger than oceans, windswept, blessed by gods, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace; a city with free ports that hum with commerce and creativity. And if there are city walls, the walls have doors and the doors are open to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.

And how stands the city on this December night? She stands strong and true, and her glow has held steady no matter the storm. She's a beacon, a magnet for all who must have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling through the darkness, toward the home they always longed for.

You have a place in the metaverse. This is it. Welcome home.

Writer's Block

“A book is a suicide postponed.”
-Emil Cioran

I think Bukowski would have agreed with the sentiment. If Hemmingway had had one more book in him, he probably wouldn't have turned that shotgun on himself.  Under the right circumstances, writer's block can be a killer.

Surprise

The other day, I found this gay test kit at Walmart. It was for sale on the shelf over by the pregnancy tests. I bought one because if I was gay I thought I should know.

Turns out I was gay! What a surprise. 

After trying out my new orientation for a few weeks, I re-read the fine print. It seems the test is only about as accurate as pregnancy tests: wrong about two percent of the time. Good thing, because I really wasn't enjoying the new life style.

I'm still trying to find a way to break the news to my boyfriend.

The Cure is Salt Water

"The cure for anything is salt water: sweat, tears or the sea." 

– Isak Dinesen

Isak Dinesen is the pen name for Karen Blixen, most widely known for her memoir "Out of Africa."

I Create, Therefore I Am

Monday Makes Me Laugh

I saw this tweet by Whiskey Monday and had to laugh:

I'm not optimistic enough to believe the world will end Friday.

Me neither.

In This Soul of a Woman

I found a new author that I like: Charles de Lint. When I saw the beginning lines below to his short story In This Soul of a Woman, I had to google to find out more:

"Eddie wants to see you."

"What's he want?" Nita asked. "Another blowjob?"

Is that a great beginning or what? That's how I stumbled across the story. It was cited as an example of a good way to begin a story. If you would like to know more about Nita, you can find the story here in google books. Not only was the beginning excellent, so was the ending.

I Would Love To Be A God

Imagination is the voice of daring. If there is anything godlike about God, it is that. 
He dared to imagine everything
-Henry Miller, Sexus

As I walked along the cliffs overlooking the ocean, I passed a man
walking in the opposite direction. He looked familiar, possibly a
trusted friend of long ago or a family member, but I couldn't quite
place him. With a sudden shock, I realized it was me, a
better-looking, more confident version of myself that I remembered
from a previous life.

I turned to follow him, trying to conceal my intentions by walking
several paces behind him. It didn't work. He turned and watched me
approach. As I drew near, he said softly "I have a gift for you."

"What is it," I asked?

"A world for you in another universe." He handed me a paper towel
tube. "Pretend it's a telescope. Use it to see your world in the other
universe."

"That's ridiculous" I snorted.

"If you won't use your imagination" he said, "your world is going to
be boring..."

"How about I imagine I can fly and jump off of this cliff? That
certainly won't be boring," I said derisively.

"Congratulations, you just used your imagination. You imagined what it
would be like to jump from this cliff and lay smashed on the ground
below. If I asked you to imagine what the rest of your life we would
be like, a vision would immediately flash through your mind of years
of meaningless toil at a dull job in which the wages barely keep up
with inflation. You ever notice how easy it is to imagine something
you have direct experience with, such as falling or boring work, but
how difficult it is to imagine something you have never tried?"

"I haven't, but now that you mention it...," I started to say.

He continued, interrupting me, "Gods imagine what they have never
seen. That's what makes them gods. Would you like to be a god
Randall?"

"I would love to be a god."

"Well Randall," he said and pointed at the cardboard tube in my hand,
"start by imagining your universe. You may find that it is not easy to
be a god."

If your life was a story...

"Randall," she said, "if your life was a story, where does it go from here?"

"Well," I answered slowly, "first I get out of the mental institution.
That's going to be hard, because I'm not good at acting normal. But I
think I can keep up a sufficiently normal act long enough to fool the
shrinks."

"So chapter one is Randall Ahren tries to act normal?" she asked. "You
may need to inject more excitement. Perhaps you should try to
breakout and end the chapter with a cliffhanger."

"How about I have a little tete-a-tete with one of the other patients
and get kicked out? Every story needs a little a sex and romance."

"I like it," she replied. "But what about a theme? Something deep that
profoundly provokes the imagination."

"There's a theme," I said, "but it hurts too much to say what it is."

Early Morning Dream

"Who are you," I asked.

"I'm the healer. I dry tears and heal hearts," she said.

"Why are you here?"

"Randall, do you really have to ask" she said, as her crystal blue eyes looked straight into mine.

"Are you an angel," I asked, hoping that she was.

"I'm your angel," she said while cupping my face between her palms,
"for as long as you need one."

Black and White

This was my entry for the Single Frame Story for this week. The prompt
was "Black and White." It is a photo left over from my blog post about
the tiny room where writers went crazy. I had happened to take one
photo without color and this was it. It's kind of a spooky photo. Very
lonely and sad for some reason.

Choices

What a joy it must be to be a truly great writer, even if it means a
shotgun at the finish. -Bukowski

Bukowski was no doubt thinking of Hemmingway when he wrote this. He
thought Hemmingway had style for killing himself with a shotgun.
If you had a choice between being ordinary, or truly great at something
that would cost you your life by suicide, which would you choose?

Medication

I realized afterwards why Hunter Thompson looked so much more relaxed
and at ease in 1997 on Letterman. It was because in the 1997
appearance, they let Hunter Thompson drink and smoke during his
appearance. In 1988, he really wanted to smoke and went so far as to
get a pack of cigarettes out of his pocket, but he didn't light up.

Black Monday

Another black Monday, I would like to say I'm getting used to them,
but not really. I did discover something interesting today. Have you
ever noticed this quote in profiles in SL:

"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of
arriving safely in a pretty and well preserved body, but rather to
skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally
worn out, and loudly proclaiming "Wow! What a Ride!"

I've noticed it in many profiles, but never thought to google it to
see where it came from. Today I discovered it's attributed to Hunter
S. Thompson. Intrigued, I did a bit more research. Hunter S. Thompson
committed suicide in 2005, by gun shot through the roof of his mouth.
He appears to be most famous for authoring Fear and Loathing
in Las Vegas.

In addition, I watched a couple of videos of him on the Letterman
show, one appearance from 1988 and another from 1997. He seemed to be
a lot funnier and more relaxed in 1997. In 1988 he just seemed mostly
scary. This quote is also attributed to him:

"Life has become immeasurably better since I have been forced to stop
taking it seriously."

Maybe that's something I should heed. Or maybe not, because if you didn't take life seriously, would you care whether you lived or died?

Heaven

This is heaven. Why is it heaven? Because it looks like a quiet place where a person could sit and write in peace. I don't have any place of my own in the real world that's all my own. Maybe it's not heaven, but it's at least the absence of hell.

Bukowski wrote that writers went crazy in tiny rooms without hope. I don't think they went crazy. They were crazy before they entered the room. The world made them crazy. The room was where they went to escape the world. By escaping they became sane.

Grief

My Secret: Sometimes I'm more pitiful than road kill and sadder than a dozen dead roses; Christmas is not the best time of year for me.

That's my entry for the Single Frame Stories for the week. The word prompt was secret. Too bad it wasn't grief. It's really not a secret that I'm sad a lot. If I was happy, that would be a well kept secret.

The pose is something I made specially for this photo. It's called grief.

Trapped

Become the sky.

Take an axe to the prison wall.

Escape.

Walk out like someone suddenly born into color.

Do it now.

-Rumi

While it sounds appealing, I cannot physically become the sky. Rumi obviously didn't mean this literally. On the other hand, I am not literally imprisoned. I could leave. However, where would I go that would be an improvement over the present situation? 

Despair

I was mistaken about being depressed on Saturday. It turns out I was feeling just a tad blue. Monday came along and reminded me what depression really feels like. If I was more talented and not feeling so fatigued, I would go in-world and try to create a photo to represent my current state. However, there is a photo that I posted previously in the SL forum that sort of shows how I'm feeling at the moment. Originally, I captioned the photo as "Insane in the Rain" from a quote attributed to Jack Kerouac. I think a better caption for the photo is "Despair".

I Surrender

Is it possible for the human spirit to win? I'm so tired and depressed tonight, I don't think even a puppy or a kitten could cheer me up.