Where have we been? Where are we going?
Could you call that a hiatus? Maybe. It’s been a little less than a year since words appeared on this thing, since we halted what I felt was a great wealth of momentum and speed, and seemingly vanished from the Tumblr-sphere to the disappointment of 20 or so people who had a vague notion we existed. Grand scheme it wasn’t that big of a deal. The internet, or the content providing slaughter house, is so large these days its akin to the universe and collapsing stars. It happens all the time, and nobody notices, nor should they. The stars in the sky that we see are probably already dead, but we’re still wishing on them.
There is a repeating theme in my life, which sometimes I fear is habit, and other times I know it’s just the sign of lack of talent. There are so many points of non-interest that are framed in a “starting and stopping before finishing” narrative. I was once almost really good at bowling. I was once offered a management position that would’ve been cushy, and easy. I once bought a magic kit (eh, it was probably given to me as a gift) and now I know three card tricks. There is a metaphor there, something about fear of endings? Eh, that’s not for me to decide. I guess it’s not for you either.
Though, all negativity aside, we did traverse the country. We sweated out five glorious, unbelievable months seeing the things to see, working the jobs that would give us interesting stories, meeting people, reconnecting with friends (and being blessed by their generosity in a way overwhelming and humbling and refreshingly reaffirming), and returning home safe, worn out, and feeling a bit like pod people amongst our familiar setting. So what happened?
I’d like to blame laziness, which is part, but more like salt in the barbecue recipe, not the paprika. There was also the factor of time speeding up and slowing down in immeasurable intervals only accountable in hindsight. There was also the fact that on our last week of travels we misplaced our laptops and lost the digital everythings.
New Orleans, you magnificent bastard. I love that city more than any other place I have visited in the USA (close second is Taos, New Mexico, followed by Boulder, Colorado and like the way I love a drunk uncle, always New York City.) Enough has been written elsewhere, by people with more genuine affection and connection for and to New Orleans (Example: I just googled the city and checked the Wikipedia page to make sure the nicknames I was going to use were actual terms of endearment, and not marketing terms to make touristy, outsiders feels like they’re in the know. Then I remembered how much I hate when people say “the big Apple” and I decided I knew better than to actually use those names, but still know that I am, for all intents and purposes, and always will be a touristy, outsider.), that I’ll hold off till later to talk about it.
So, where was I… On the last week before returning home, we had left Arkansas and headed straight down to NOLA (Damn it!). It was a 10 hr straight shot, at the tail end of 5 months of adventuring. We were worn out, desensitized, and running on fumes. New Orleans was going to be the last hurrah, with what little money we had to spend, before we went home and ruminated on what to do next. I drove through the night, stopping only for gas, and shitty bags of potato chips, taking weird backroads, pinching the bridge of my nose, listening to loud, mind-numbing pop-punk from my youth, waiting to be invigorated by the city that care forgot (Fuck!).
We arrived, 4 o’clock in the morning, and pulled into the gated parking lot of a friends apartment complex. She greeted us warmly, as we vibrated with the need for sleep, and in a zombie like haze unloaded the van. Our friend regaled us with the past two weeks of her life, which were full of terrible, insane happenstance including a break-in, and more than one conversation with the police. We chugged 16 oz Budweiser in the muggy morning air, as felt customary, and also cliche. Somewhere in the hustle and bustle of emptying the car of the necessaries; our camera, pillows, blanket, clothes, and laptops, our computers were forgotten on top of the van.
When we realized our folly at around noon the next day, some lucky street urchin had already absconded with them. All the writing, most of the pictures, other things that are still today unaccounted for, poof! vanished. The digital equivalent of a box of notebooks, and photo albums were taken.
And may I say, fuck you you pond scum sucking, cephalopod. You probably smell like garbage, and suck on phone booths for quarters just so you can afford canned sardines, and expired, basement temperature St. Ides as the bare minimum sustenance to keep your slime trail dragging behind you on the sidewalk, as you slowly digest yourself from the inside out, hopefully collapsing one day in a puddle of goo that guarantees the last portion of your particular DNA strand drifts off in a stream of dirty rain runoff and washes out into the Mississippi river, thankfully to no longer pollute the human experiment with your particular breed of asshole.
Then again, maybe you were down on your luck, and you were sick of watching your kids crying tears of hunger, in which case, I hope our computers helped you out in whatever way they could. We didn’t need them that bad.
Anyway… This is the first thing I have written since then, sincerely, and entirely. I don’t know if I suffered some PTSD, or was crippled by anger, or used it as an excuse to shirk off responsibility that I placed on myself in the first place. Whatever it was, sorry to have been gone so long. I had a bunch of posts ready to go, and it was disheartening to lose it all. Stuff that I was proud of, which I guess was stuff I should just let go. Tear it down and start anew right? Ugh.
Oh yeah, there are two questions in the title. Where are we going? We are heading to sunny Los Angeles (the big orange; City of Angeles; La La Land; Tinseltown) to live, thrive, and attempt it. Why not?
Thanks for listening. We’ll now return to our regularly scheduled blog-casting, finishing off last years story line, and picking up this years accordingly. I was told I need to get working on my content, and I guess blogging for a writer is like going to the gym. God I hate exercise.
