HACK № 23: Writer’s Block & Thee

Howdy Folks, welcome to the twenty-third concoction of HACK.  If you’ve made it this far, how much further can you go?

I hope you all had a Merry and/or Happy Whatever You Did From December 22, 2011 Until January 2, 2012.  That was the length of my staycation, which included: (in order of importance) sleep, naps, smoking, sitting in front of the computer, writing, eating, lesson planning, grading papers, and visiting family and friends.

Wait?  What?

Why is visiting family and friends last on my list?  Shouldn’t it be first?  Isn’t that the whole point of the holiday.  And by holiday, I mean, primitive humans coming together for warmth in the winter, celebrating survival and animal kills and newborns and the praising the Great Spirit inside us.  Even when you strip away the origin or meaning of a holiday, at it’s heart it’s just another reason for people to come together.  So why do I just want to be alone?

I think it’s fear-based over reaction to how much love I have to give.  One can lose oneself in others.  Heck, one can lose oneself in just one other.  I’ve done both.  It’s easy for someone like me.  I’ve got my dad’s charm, wit and wisdom and my mom’ s ability to empathically smother another human being with love.

But let’s face it.  People also suck.  Even the ones you love, your family and friends.  They can suck too.  You don’t want to cross the line between something you want to do with your heart and a mere social obligation.  You DEFINITELY don’t want to blur that line simply because you’re lazy and forgetting why you’re here in the first place–to co-create Heaven with others.  You’d think the key word there would be Heaven, but it’s not, it’s others.

That’s what It’s The Crew! was only ever about.  It wasn’t some exclusive club for those that get it.  It wasn’t some elite gathering of people who think they’re more enlightened than you.*  We just wanted to connect with others, and absorb it all together into the One.  We’re playing with God.  Our god, your god, my god, any god, Not God, THE GOD.

OK, so I like my solitude.  Nothing wrong with that.  If there’s one resolution I’ve come to it’s that I need other people.  I don’t even care if I die alone.  I just want to be with you before that.

Truth is I’m writing all this at 6:38.  This would be like, the shit I would never post.  It’s the shit I write to make room for the garbage I post.  Oh, self-deprecation, will you ever learn?  But I didn’t want to leave all my adoring fans with nothing.  Even when I re-post old writings they’ve gone through heavy editing and rewriting.

Yeah, so, I’ve been riffing this whole time.  I am sitting on the couch underneath a lambswool hoodie, a robe, a red dog-eared hat, and fluffy slippers.  I am wearing all this indoors because I recently came back from smoking a cigarette.  When I finish this paragraph I will take a piss and then go smoke another cigarette but I won’t have to go through all of the hassle of putting on the clothes.

Yes, this is my fucking life.

Side note:  I am almost 34 years old, have been writing since the grade I currently teach, and I have to write a column under the pseudonym Towel Boy so that some search-engine-savvy youngster who already knows way more than you think about what adults are up to won’t, um, ruin my career.  It’s happened before and it could happen again.  Sometimes I wish it would happen.  Because if it does, that’s it, I’m OUT.  Like, picking  direction and heading out out.  I won’t pull an Aaron Kliger, but you’d probably see me a lot less than you do now, which is maybe not at all.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that most people only want you to be yourself to the extent that who you are conforms to their expectations of what they think your self should be.  Yeah, WATCH OUT for those people.

So while freezing my ass off just now I checked on my Godville heroine, Meleth, to see how she’s doing.  Got two golden bricks in 4 seconds.  Plus she’s just completed Level 40:  Fill in a black hole.

That black hole would be the writer’s block I’ve had since last week’s HACK.  It’s never a lack of things to write about.  It’s a dearth of desire to write.

You know, I realize that anything I say is all just more human drivel, the babbling babel of yet another fool who thinks he needs to be heard.  I don’t care.  I may love being alone, but I also an audience, even if it’s just me laughing at my own jokes.  When you finally do get me out I’ll almost always have a good time, even if your reality is well, LAME!   But the Internet provides such easy potential exposure, which is more than good enough for me.

It’s Tuesday at 7:00.  I haven’t had dinner or showered and I need to be in bed reading in two hours.  If there’s one thing above all others…diet, exercise, brain stimulation…it’s the right amount of sleep that makes all the difference that next day.

So I promised myself I’d try and make this short, for once.  Yeah, Marcus, how’s that working out for you?  Well, at least my verbiage isn’t the only thing that’s long, YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN?

So I guess what this HACK is really about is what’s been bothering me, what always bothers me, especially around the holidays.  There are people I love and haven’t seen or talked to for a long time.  There are people I’ve loved I regret not seeing now.  There are people I could be loving and thus the infinite possibility of growing as a human being.  So if someone put a gun to my head and said, “You must pick one resolution and stick to it for the entire year or else one year from now I will blow your brains out,” I’d pick making more of an effort to reconnect with the ones I miss, fearlessly reveal myself to the ones I diss, and…something about someone to kiss.  LAAAAAAAME!  How about, and somewhere outside to piss?

Wait, what was I talking about?  Oh yeah, the Others.  I love you all.  I hope it all works out.  My only advice to you and to myself is:  Everything will fine.  I’m sorry to all of you that I may have hurt, or rudely pulled away from, or just had to let go.  I take comfort in the knowledge that nothing is every really lost, that we will be together always.  Separation is a temporary delusion.

And I want to thank anyone who took the time to read this and/or all previous HACKS.  Seriously.  Checking the site stats is like getting my fix of encouragement.  Thank you to those who have supported It’s The Crew!  since we gave this thing of ours such a lame name.  LAAAAAAAAAAME!

I do this because I believe there’s something more going on than just my job, more than the just “The Internet,” more than just a single lonely planet in an empty universe.  I believe that I am a part of whatever we are doing here.  I’m just playing my part.  No, fuck that.  I’m playing WITH my part.  No, fuck THAT!  I’m playing with my HEART.

* Sigh *  Guess this is good a time as any to end this with something ridiculous like… I’m trying to hack at the root of it all but the bark is too sappy.  Y’all can meditate on that metaphor until next week.

Hope I have something to write about by then…

*Yet we are.

Marcus D’Ambrose has a bad habit of being himself.