Still Figurin' Out Who I Think I Am

This one's about a review, something new, and bones.

"Take a look at everyone who is taking part in this month's challenge. Pick one member, go into their portfolio, and review one of their items in your entry. Then, suggest an item of your own you'd like to see reviewed."

What's good everybody? It's another first of the month, and that means another round of the eventually world famous "30-Day Blogging Challenge ON HIATUS" ...and because it's been 16 days since my last entry, I figured now might be a good time to drop in and say hey. Don't get used to it though...y'all know I'm not down with writing for the prompts I dish out (even though I've got a slew of prompts to choose from).

And if I'm being honest, if this particular prompt came along in any of the other blogging groups I occasionally participate in, I'd be inclined to sit this one out. As much as I'd love to be one of those helpful, courteous, enthusiastic review people, I've learned that I'm not. I don't even know if I'm good at it, to be honest. I get reviews once in awhile, and they're fantastic in that there's a template with structure and wisdom and advice and shit...while I just can't get myself around phrases like "I really really like this!" or "Cool, thanks for sharing this!". It's embarrassing. And my default mode is to use myself and my own writing as a standard, which is probably a big no-no because who am I to judge; like, who do I think I am? Check my stats...in 14+ years on WDC, I've given like 400 reviews. There are people around here who do that in like, a week...and they're all top-shelf 2500-word breakdowns. I'll never be known as that guy. And I'm ok with that...let the experts tell you what's up. I'm just there for the cheerleading and the esteem boost (and I also hate telling someone their heart-and-soul life's work sucks).

But I really need to get back on the blogging bus. I've discovered that part of my writing process is starting to mirror my life, in that it's just that...it's becoming a process (italics used as a non-positive emphasis). I really have to convince myself to do it. It's not easy, or at least, it's not as easy as it used to be. I mean well; I have every intention when I come across certain prompts at night that come the next day I'm gonna bang out an awesome piece of my mind...and that morning comes and I'm like "Naw homie, maybe not today..." and I sidetrack myself, and by dinnertime I chuckle at my silliness for thinking I might contribute anything. I'm a god damn head case like that.

So anyway I came up with this prompt because I want the participants in this month's 30DBC to become familiar with one another...most of you will probably stick around for the whole month, which means you'll become more familiar with each other, and that's what I want to foster between everyone. Before I took over, I competed in a bunch of these...and by the end it felt like everyone was a little family. It's another great way of making friends around WDC. That's my biggest hope each month for everyone...that y'all have a good time, get creative, and make a few friends. But enough of me rambling on about that.

We've got a couple of newbies in this month's go 'round, and my first thought was to pick one of them in hopes that they'd feel encouraged and then inclined to stick around...but instead I went a little more comfortable route and chose someone I'm more familiar with. skeason is, now I guess you could say, a veteran of the 30DBC, having placed in multiple rounds...she's one of my favorites, actually. Intelligent, hilarious, irreverent, somewhat unhinged...everything I love in a blog. I have a ton of respect for her. She doesn't hold back. When she steams, you can feel the heat coming off your reading device of choice. When she makes a point, it's with the accuracy of a Shaolin monk catching a fly with chopsticks. But for some odd reason, I don't think I ever ventured too far into her port...don't judge me! If I read everything by everyone I respect, I'd have no time to write my own shit.

I jumped over to "December Haiku and Senryu Challenge" ...easy enough, because I like poetry and haiku writing, and as simple as it sounds, it's kinda not. It takes work to fuck one up, but a good or great haiku conveys so much in a compact space. And I had no idea that Skeez (that's my nickname for you, BTW) had that kind of depth in her. I mean, everyone has depth, and I'm sure I know it's there, but when you read so much from one person in one format sometimes it gets lost in the day-to-days of whatever it is we all do around here on WDC. That makes it a beautiful surprise when you come across something other than what you know someone to be, and I'm glad I took the opportunity to read a little more than what I'm used to from her. I reviewed the folder on a whole rather than an individual piece, because haikus (probably not the actual plural of "haiku" since my spellcheck flagged it, but whatever) are crazy short and it makes no sense to me to write a quality review that winds up being longer than the piece itself...especially when you have only favorable things to say.

So here's my thoughts on it: Review of "December Haiku and Senryu Challenge" . I'd like to recommend "Invalid Item"  and "Invalid Item"  first and foremost, as they're two of my favorites in the collection. The only thing I could think of as to why I couldn't give the folder a full 5 blessing is that each item was created individually (as part of a contest?), and I was hoping just to hit "next" easily, like a book or blog. But mad props to Skeez. I'd party with her any day...I get the feeling that if we weren't inciting some kind of trouble together, we'd be chillin' in the corner makin' fun of everyone else or having a better time philosophizing in the moment. I think there'd be some kind of hooliganistic stuff goin' down though. First guess.

Anyway, mingle with your fellow challengers this month! That makes it all the more fun and real and whatever. Good luck to everyone, and get them words!!

"If you could write on something you have never thought of to write about before, like a different idea, genre, or method, what would it be and how would you go about it?"

Joy always has some straight-up thoughtful prompts...at times even mind-bending. But I think everyone who is tasked with creating prompts ultimately does a better job with it than I do, including Lyn's a Witchy Woman , Charlie ~ , Prosperous Snow celebrating , and Princess Megan Snow Rose . Those five...that's your All-Star Prompt Team starting five, right there.

As for what I'd write in a different sense? That's tough. I'm a creature of habit. I write what I know and what I feel...going outside of my comfort zone, as with a lot of other things in life, tends to work me into states of confusion and self-doubt. I recently started trying to write fiction for kiyasama's "Musicology Anthology"  with "Paul's Boutique" , but it's not great. I find myself constantly going back to biographical moments and leaning on them under the guise of "fiction", which isn't my strongest suit. I grew up writing poetry based on my life and my experiences, like "big smart rock jerk"  and some other item I have in mind that I can't seem to find right now. I mostly blog now, where I reconcile prompts with what I'm doing or have done. As much as I hate to say it, I've become set in certain ways. I'm the authority over my my words, and if I don't feel like doing something, I don't do it. No spark, no ignition. Again, comfort zone. I prefer to stick with what's always worked for me...that's why I still write free-verse poems in notebooks 99% of the time I come up with anything that isn't somewhat coherent blog entries.

But man, do I wish! Big dreams! I've started what I thought would be novels of some sort. I have one buried in a storage tub...maybe only a few pages long (they're all "a few pages long", and that's it) about lktropuckr and developing a story out of that through poems that never really materialized. But there were fake names and hopeless dreams and good christ that was like ten years ago, or something. Before blogging, after my self-inflicted poetry embargo, and being bored with everything but catching light in a different direction. I start little projects like that...and then I get sidetracked with other stuff. To pick them back up seems like too much of a challenge after the moment of dire inclination has passed. I'm all or nothing, unfortunately. Would I love to recreate the past in my casting? Of course...but that impedes my future and the "here and now" that I feel like I'm so one-track driven on. It's a balance I'm struggling to not teeter off of, and like many I choose to be the heavier weight.

Some writers- fuck it...most of 'em- can get out of their own heads to create these wonderful places people can get lost in. Alternate realities. I'm not there. I can appreciate that, but I can't sustain that. I want crossovers and genre-flipping. I want to donkey-punch words so they submit into places you've never seen them. The internet has watered down content so much now...as easily as people are offended by a flag or "privilege" or religion or shaming of whatever, so are people being enlightened by anyone who doesn't give a fuck and spits true game in a place that makes you relocate your thinking of whatever topic. Don't just tell; color it. Don't be satisfied with personal details...relate. And don't just relate like the masses want you to relate...drop in the unexpected. If you have a pulse, follow it down to where it comes from and make it your own for everyone to admire. Separate yourself. Be the fruitful difference between a biography and an autobiography. I could go on, as the metaphors rollick through my head, but I'm missing the point. I kinda do that at times.

I guess what I'm saying is...try as hard as I might, I'm comfortable in certain aspects with my voice when writing. Venturing out, away from that, to me would sound contrived. I can't be what I'm not, and I am who I am. No more, no less. Guaranteed fresh   since 1975.

"This is what my bones kept saying..."

Imma tell you what my bones keep saying, because they're still alive enough to avoid the past tense. They fucking hate me. They're rebelling against the rest of my body over the abuse they took twenty-some odd years ago. The invincible kid who fought to prove his worth beyond big ol' glasses and nerdy pretenses. I had something to prove, and I full-force proved it. The playground hero...pick me last and I'll make you wish you picked me first, and next time you will. Some people just get respect based on who they are and who they know...kids like me had to earn it, and earn it, and earn it all over again. The playground mentality memory is short until you consistently drop triple-doubles on the court or rip off ankle-breaking jukes on the way to the end zone.

And in the long run, all of that means nothing.

I repeat: nothing.

All that striving for acceptance. Being able to fit in because you could do something others couldn't. Making a difference to friends with your body at stake. Playground fucking hero. Look at you now.

Sure, those with long memories hold close to them and paint a slightly different picture. But you forget that time breaks you down physically when you're too caught up in what was.

I wake up every morning assuming that my knees will withstand what the rest of my upper body can put on them, and hoping that the side affects from my sleeping and depression/anxiety meds won't leave me toppling over in dizziness. Some days are better than others. I've always fluctuated as far as weight goes, and I think my body got used to a certain threshold as I got older and more settled than before...but breaking my ankle a few years back destroyed all of that. I got sucked in to being a patient. I still can't run...I can't do anything I would've been able to do prior to the bonfire-jumping atrocity I became when I landed in a frozen pit made by a truck's wheels in mud and crumpled when I tried to walk it off. I've broken bones before, but never like this...fractured, torn ligaments, muscles in the way impinged. Screws, a plate, surgeries. A permanent limp. I'm not the man I used to be...who could scale defenders and plow over bigger impedences and shit. I'm just an old guy. 40. Fuck.

A twice-broken shoulder that was misdiagnosed the first time. A broken thumb. A mangled pinky finger. No cartilage left in my knees to tear, so my kneecaps keep rubbing on bone. And all the years I spent working out and "building a bigger, healthier body" mean nothing now. Sure, I hastened the physical wreck...but I didn't think it'd be this bad. No one does. When you're in it, you're not concerned about the future. In a results-based situation, NOW is all that matters. Not one or five or twenty years.

Fuck. And people think I'm lazy or entitled. Piss off. I want to scream. So what if I "did this to myself". I didn't ask for a broken body. I was just doing what I had to do to survive in situations where I was fighting for respect. No one expects the nerdy kid to contribute anything substantial on the athletic field, and they don't know how to respond when the kid goes off. Fuckin' empathy...no one knows it until it beats the piss outta them personally.

But anyway...my bones are beat. They're always tired; always spent. I'm way more comfortable laying down than being upright. I shouldn't be this way. My mother warned me something about abusing my body the way I did when I was still a formidable teenager, but she was right. I'm not an All-Star anything, and my vessel is busted. Of all the anythings I could've been, I guessed hella incorrect. And all I have left now are memories, and my bones reminding me daily of how great I was in a snapshot of time...and how I'm paying for it now.

Because this is learning, when you get old and older and learning to learn...

"And I used to fly like Peter Pan."
Lyrics.  

C'mon now...even I can't be so emotionless as to not raise up a salute to the whole WDC Birthday place to be. Big ups to the The StoryMistress and the The StoryMaster on this occasion. It's incredible, and I'm very appreciative. I hope you get to enjoy it as much as we have/will. Thank you for everything you've done, and for making this the home of so many different people.

Oh you cheeky bastards, Cinn and Charlie ~ ..."I need something normal" "I go where Charlie goes " I . Shenanigan Central. Right here, bitches. My excitedness has doth broughteth forth-edness-ess-nessery. I've got my eye on you two  . All sorts of shenanigans will be expected and tolerated, but I have final say as to how far you'll go, and I don't think either of you will push me to the absolute limit.

And I'm sure I had a buttload of other things to add to this fractured pile of discussionary pieces of things you're kinda in the mood to talk about but I'm not, so I'm gonna cut this off so I can catch a nap before I hafta smash my brain against my pillow when I wake up and need to figga out another proimpt. Ugh...worst part of owning a cool-ass forum. Peace, I don't want to be crippled and cracked, and GOODNIGHT NOW!!