an open letter...

Well hello there.

I have been away, I know. Aside from the odd literary fart (brought on by articulatory constipation momentarily giving way to emotional and psychological diarrhea), I have been remiss indeed. And like the sexual-nomenclature-ignoring little dutch boy, I may be on the verge of being smacked by someone big and mean. In this case, the dyke in question is my mind, and the percolations therein are demanding to be heard.

While I have been idle, I have not been idling, per se. In fact, my life has lately resembled an engine running very, very hot, in neutral. With Rs PM looking to go the way of the New York debt clock, it’s time to put things in gear. I don’t know where they got the extra zeros in New York, but currently the sign-changers in my head may be looking at capital Os with worried visions of an ugly, mismatched string of cyphers. I owe myself a lot. A lot of reading, and writing, and playing. My body is practically humming with reckless energy, determined to shoot my organs out my orifices. So before I go nose through nostril, adam’s apple through ear, or appendix through ass, it’s time to do something. This feeling is, of course, like everything, a reaction to something, although “equal and opposite” remains to be seen. While I’ve been stewing in my own juices, I’ve lost a lot of ideas to distraction and fear. And lethargy, which has been eating the previous two abstract nouns as big, fatty lunch for many many days. But, though one never knows when rock-bottom’s trap door is going to swing open, I’m pretty pumped and primed for production. After an excellent, if hedonistic, weekend, and through getting to know someone new and different, I find myself questioning a lot about what is important to me. And I’m realizing that what’s important to me has to be what is fun. What keeps my attention? And not the kind of attention being kept when I’m passively sponging up another evening of movie or tv-watching, that attention is far, far too easily held. But underneath that, through a murky soup of insecurity, neurosis, and shallow-breathing, in the place where you find, in the words of Yoda “Only what you take with you.” there’s another kind of attention. A full on, focussed attention where imagination and intellect do the tango to that old duet by Tom Waits and everybody else in the world. So I’ve got plans, loads of them, and it’s time to make some happen. I won’t share them all with you just now, I’ve got family and friends to correspond with, another joy I have been sabotaging myself out of for a while. Besides, it’s better if some things remain mysterious, in fact, it’s better if all things retain some mystery. See you soon.

Joshua