In the beginning...

I thought about writing this blog in the middle of the night. Couldn’t sleep.  Inane thoughts, mostly work related and general day-to-day woes crowding my mind.    Mostly, I was thinking about doing something radical and getting paid for it.  Yup, money - the root of all wretchedness for modern humans.  Realistic enough to realize can’t sell anything worth a damn.  Probably could if I really tried, but don’t have it in me.  Have lots of interest, but nothing really lucrative.  Decent enough writer (that’s my personal opinion), but too addicted to the adrenalin rush experienced at the onset of a writing project, so I never really quite finish anything.  I’m all a sizzle at the beginning, then the romance is over and I get bored.  So I have a love hate relationship with my computer, sue me.  But right now I’m itching to write again, so let’s get on with it! 

I had an epiphany today.  It’s not a matter of finishing a project or sticking to one plot, with a bunch of characters that I end up hating or wanting to forget.  Maybe it’s simply better to have short or long term affairs with the characters in my mind whether they are real or imagined people.  I’m not harming anyone and I get to set all the rules.  Industry specialists encourage mock interviews all the time to prepare for the real thing.  Guilt is such a cliché anyway.  When all is said and done, I’m the only one who really knows what happened.  And I’m certainly not going to waste the padre’s time confessing lurid vignettes that went on inside my head.  Those days are long gone, and I have the knees to prove it.  I’ll tell it like I see it, hear it, and smell it!  If I run out of gas, then let somebody else figure out their own ending or beginning, or whatever.  C'est la vie! 

I’ve lived in Southern California most of my life.  As an adult, I can’t even imagine the horror of not having wheels to go wherever I needed to go, regardless of how much time I have to spend in a steel cage getting there.  It was a given for normal people to bond with the asphalt for most of their working and non-working life there.  When I moved to DC and the metro became my new mode of transportation, it was like waking up from a catatonic existence.  I actually have time to do something other than chew the inside of my cheek, listen to cheesy music and look at other motorists who were worse off than I was. 

I actually noticed that I have legs that can take me from point A to point B after I leisurely utilize the escalators, working or not, to ascend from and to the bowels of the subway.  I am constantly assaulted by a rich array of odors that I never had the opportunity to inhale or notice before due to exhaust acclimation.  And the colorful characters I get to engage with physically or mentally during sardine crush times never cease to stimulate.  When the metro cars are relatively free of human squash, there are always opportunities to observe the loungers and the posers.  Then there's DC itself!  So many happenings, so little time.   I am finally in the real world, an actual organism in the Petri dish called America, incubating in the capital of a country that constantly reinvents itself and is still the best place to live, regardless of its many flaws. The possibilities are mind-boggling, endless characters to scrutinize and fantasize about.  All I have to do is let my imagination run amok and savor those moments of lucidity when I am inspired enough to write something down. 

I do have a disclaimer, however.  My musings are not for the weak of heart and stomach; and most certainly, it is not for individuals without a sense of humor or imagination.