Like a Bolt Out of the Blue.

"In Heathrow a vast chunk of memory detached itself from a blank bowl of airport sky and fell on him. He vomited into a blue plastic canister without breaking stride."
- Count Zero, William Gibson

Like a bolt out of the blue, I just now remembered that this blog exists and that I can write whatever I want on it whenever I want. And the best part? No one will EVER READ IT. Because no one reads blogs anymore.  I love that for me. There are few things better for the soul than toiling in obscurity.

Not kidding, like I know that I have this weirdo little website and everything, but I do not know that I have thought about it in eons. 

Just now it occurred to me that I should see if I can even still log in. And guess what? I can.

This is very exciting for me. 

(Gawd, I forgot what a pain in the ass it is to format on this thing)

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Back to the Grind.

Some years ago when I started writing this blog, the Earth was a different place. It was still ruled by dinosaurs. They had feathers, they were very dangerous. It was a time unlike this one. It was back before Twitter, before Facebook was an organ of a foreign power. I was in my 20s and I had SO MANY THINGS I wanted to just shout out into the world. I was impatient.

I’m still impatient.

The last several years though I’ve been in grad school and that took up most of my bandwidth and so I have not really been here very much. I feel bad about that because I have missed it here.

Back when I was a grown-up with a grown-up job and grown-up responsibilities, there would be days when all I wanted was to sit at my kitchen table and write something to post here. But that was a long time ago. Since then the dinosaurs have all died out, followed quickly and obediently by all the bloggers. I think the bloggers all have podcasts now. That reminds me, I’ve been working on a joke:

Q: What do you call a group of white men?

A: A podcast.

I’m not saying it’s a good joke, but then I’m not a comedian.

What I am is a writer. For better or worse. That’s the thing I have to hold onto right now. I’m in one of those post-grad school type slumps. The freelance gig that was supposed to be paying my way right now turned to vapor, so I’ve been having to look for work while simultaneously trying to figure out my next step in life and as a writer.

None of that is terrible on its own, but I’m no longer in my 20s and going through a transitional life period is far less charming when you’re old enough to have gray hair peppering the stubble along your jaw.

But I’m diligent and I know that one of my super powers in this life is the ability to grind it out harder and for longer than is really even reasonable. It’s how I once ended up running an accounting department without ever having been trained as an accountant. It’s why I have an MFA now after years and so many rejections. It’s why I still go running, even though I am literally the slowest and silliest runner anyone has ever even seen. People who drive past while I am running probably DO consider me a comedian.

For Christmas I received as a gift Rachel Aust’s new book called Less: a visual guide to minimalism. I am a big fan of hers and while so far nothing in the book is really new, it is a beautiful book and it has reminded me that back in 2012 I committed myself to living a life like the one the book describes. A life with less crap in it. I committed to owning less and to carrying around less baggage. I committed to a life where I try to do my best, every day, every time, every chance I get, and in so doing am relieved of the existential dread that comes from living poorly. I’d rather be poor than live poorly.

And let me tell you, it has at least paid dividends in this regard: I certainly am poor.

I also fail at that whole thing quite a lot. Like alotalot.

I’m telling you all of this not because I think you’ll find it interesting - “you” don’t even exists, no one does or has ever read this blog - I’m telling you this because today could have been a shitty day and last week could have been a shitty week. And this whole life right now could just be a shitty transitional period. But sitting here and writing it all out helps remind me that today was not really a shitty day, it just wasn’t an ideal one. That’s not the same thing.

What today is, is my life. It has not been a life well planned, but thus far it has been a life pretty well lived. So I’ve got that going for me.

Sometimes I wonder why I’m the last unembarrassed blogger walking the Earth, but then I realize it’s because I can’t do THIS on Twitter and it would make a really boring podcast and I’m not funny-ha-ha enough to make this kind of thinking into a stand-up act, but what I can do is sit here and think everything out with this keyboard. I think you can think anything out with a good keyboard.

You know who didn’t have any good keyboards? Because they didn’t technically speaking have fingers or an alphabet? Dinosaurs. And they’re all dead now. And I’m still here. Writing. Because I can grind it out.

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A Very Special Editor’s Note.

So you know how sometimes you’re reading through this blog and you come across something particularly ill-conceived and you actually say out loud, “Well that is just the stupidest godamn thing I have ever read. Why do I even keep reading this godman blog?”

Well, just so that you know, we here at Standard Kink sometimes get that feeling when we’re writing this stuff.

So today is going to be one of those days for you.

What awaits you below is some of the most egregiously dumb, time-wasting, sloppy and ridiculous work that we have ever posted.

This is when you ask, “Worse than that poem about Shark Week that didn’t even rhyme?”

Yes.

“Dumber than that time you wrote about all the unopened mail on your desk?”

Yes.

“More insipid then the poem you wrote about Kenny Loggins visiting you at work?”

Yes.

“Wow. That is pretty bad.”

Look it has just been that kind of day, okay? They can’t all be winners folks. But look, you try writing stuff for a blog every single day. It is really hard to generate content!

Abandon all hope ye who enter here!

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Rush Limbaugh is dumb.

Hahahahahahahahahahahaha!

So Rush Limbaugh quoted entirely fake information on his show. Big deal, right? Glenn Beck does it for a living. But this is especially funny because Limbaugh didn't think he was lying. Apparently he was quoting from a blog that was quoting a different blog, which started the whole thing as a joke.

So now we have qualitative proof: Republicans don't have any sense of humor. Or, at the very least, have no barometer for gauging sarcasm.


Here is a Yahoo article: Rush was punked.

TTFN.
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Blogger's Guilt.

Oh hello poor, sad, lonely, neglected blog. How I have missed you.

I have been really busy the past couple of weeks, though I can’t really tell you why. I think work has just been burning me out lately, so I get home and just collapse into a lump on the sofa. I have actually been falling asleep lately. I’m so old. It is actually sad.

Anyway, I will try to do better by you poor blog!

Is there a name for what I’m feeling? Blogger’s Guilt? Which is totally different than Blogger’s Remorse, which is when you really regret having posted something (sure, you can take it down, but it was still floating around out there for awhile).

Anyway, I miss you blog. I will return again soon.

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