Gothy Gussy

This is me. I'm Gothy Gussy. I've decided to become a Goth, you know, try it out. I realize that I'm a 35 year old married guy who has long since outgrown my teen angst phase, but I just thought I'd give Goth a whirl. I'm asking for Edward Gorey pyjamas for Christmas, as well as a DVD collection including Edward Scissorhands, Beetlejuice and The Nightmare Before Christmas. Oh, and the Pink Panther Series. Kato is sorta gothy, dressed in black and everything. Anyhow, to celebrate my newfound gothiness, I thought I'd offer you this wonderfully Gothy poem that I just made now, so that my wife wouldn't have to keep looking at the two Japanese guys and their lap pillows.

Deathitty Death

Oh, Mistress Death!
Dark as night,
As a raven's dark feathers
Cock-a-doodle-Death!
I hear you at dawn
with your sad
lament
You have no
more time to spend.
Off to bed!
But tonight
When Morrisey's sad
breath
sends wistful, mournful
words from you
to me,
I will feel your cool
touch and know
that you are my
voyeur.

Like that? I just made it up. Right now.

Okay, my Goth phase is over. Thanks for enjoying it with me.

Resolution Time

I always thought that making a list of New Year Resolutions was a bunch of hooey. "Why disappoint yourself, year in and year out," was my thought on the matter. "You're gonna make 'em, you're gonna break 'em. Case closed."

Things change, though. Two years ago, I watched as my wife made a list of resolutions and slowly but surely tackled them. She didn't get them all done, but she was able to meet some very impressive goals. Her goals included climbing to the top of Yosemite's Half Dome, and learning to rock climb. She knocked both of those out on the same trip. Let's be clear, though. She did not rock climb to the top of Half Dome. She's SuperJen, but she's not that super.

I was impressed, and I decided to make my own list of resolutions. I don't think that I was able to keep any of those resolutions. I can't find them, and quite honestly, there was a certain topsy-turviness to this year that made me abandon the resolutions entirely. I don't think that I abandoned them with the attitude of "why bother, I'm not going to meet them," but instead, I saw them as something to point me in the right direction. While I couldn't get it together to actually fulfill my goals, I was able to see my way toward those goals.

I know that one of my resolutions had to do with writing. I wanted to write and submit two short stories this year, and that didn't get done. (If I were a foolhardy optimist, I'd look at the calendar and say "why, December's not even half-over! There's plenty of time to submit!") What I did do, however, was start a weblog, with the encouragement of a number of people, and I think that I slowly began to find my voice as a writer. That was a good thing. I majored in Creative Writing in college, and people told me that I had a knack for it. I dismissed their compliments--not directly, but just in my own mind. Why? I dunno. Low self-esteem. Maybe I thought that they were "just being nice."

At any rate, I see now that we make resolutions in order to challenge ourselves, to give ourselves goals, to make our lives interesting and meaningful. Hopefully, along the way, we learn something about ourselves that will make us better people.

If anything, the list of last year's failed resolutions will help me decide what to take on this year. Writing resolutions is just like anything else you try in life. You only learn to get better with trial and error, and practice. I've never been great about the goal-setting, but I think that it's been fun to try to set goals and meet them. I know from this last year that I need to work on time-management. This is something that I've always been bad at, and it's something that I've known about for years. Looking at my failed resolutions though, I think that I can't avoid tackling this any longer. Frittered time and ill-focused energy will only serve to cause failure in my life. (That sounds like something you'd find in a fortune cookie).

More on the resolution thing later, when I have the time to write about it.

On The Interstate

Forever on Five are the trucks, the backdrop on the Interstate stage play. Tractors and trailers, from dusk to dawn to dusk again. Their diesel engines thrumming, their tires grinding tread to black dust, they lumber, lined trunk to tail like elephants. Sometimes they hump along, huddled tight, like an anonymous pod of grey whales in migration.

Awake, Searching

I'm awake at almost 2:00 am. I fell asleep earlier, slept until midnight, and then woke up. I had a feeling that I might end up wide awake, and so I am. I was being held tight by the dogs. One on each side, holding the blankets taut over my body, holding my limbs stiff, my body in place, like a mummy. I became claustrophobic. I had to get up. Lights were on, my stomach was grumbling. I'm at a loss for stuff. I wouldn't say that it's writer's block, necessarily, but my mind just can't really wrap itself around much these days. The words don't want to come.

I woke up this morning, Saturday morning, in a cranky mood. I walked the dogs, on demand. Milo just wouldn't shut the hell up. He was driving me crazy with his whining and yammering. Yes, dogs yammer. Later on, I took our cat, Oscar, to the vet. Oscar has been having health problems. He's a 13-year-old brown tabby with a cough. The vet x-rayed him and told me that he had the feline version of CPOD. Oscar is also overweight, with a hyper-thyroid condition. He has an accelerated heart rate and a murmur, as well.

My aunt, an overweight, diabetic single-amputee with CPOD and Chronic Heart Failure, reminds me of Oscar. She's not quite 60 yet, and I think that she's in worse condition than Oscar is, but still, she reminds me of him. She's a cat person, too. I mentioned to Jen that maybe Oscar could go live with my aunt, and that maybe they could share oxygen (she's hooked up to the oxygen 24/7).

Anyhow, that's Oscar.