Damn it. It’s been two weeks since I posted last. Somehow
that happened despite my best plans. Actually, I know exactly how that
happened. A pinch of stress, a dash of exhaustion and a dollop of not a clue
about what I wanted to say in this blog was how that happened. Oh well, what
are wagons for if not getting back on?
Tomorrow is Dental Appointment: The Bloodening. I’m not
looking forward to it. Sort of long tailed cat in a rocking chair factory
nervous about the whole affair, to be perfectly candid. Whatever crazy ass
ginger gene that makes it so pain killers and Novocain don’t work so good I
have in spades, which is awesome because I also have super soft teeth that
cavity up if I so much as think about brownies.
Win.
Come to think of it, it’s been a win sort of month all around
lately. Work, naturellement, has featured heavily in this non-stop shit smorgasbord,
to the point where I’ve contemplated punching myself in the face a few times
when I wake up in a good mood just so, you know, it might convince whatever
malignant spirits govern my workplace into leaving my sorry ass alone for a
change of pace.
Granted, part of this rant I chalk up to having to proofread
a full page menu ad for a Mexican Seafood restaurant in Hobart, Indiana. That
sentence has so much fail in it. Half the damn thing was in Spanish, and there
were about ninety items on the menu. My pet theory is that the larger the menu,
the higher the odds the restaurant is going to give you food poisoning. Considering
this place serves about ten different forms of ceviche in
Hobart-Fucking-Indiana (which is hundreds of miles away from the sea, FYI), I
am fairly sure this place is actually just trying to kill people.
On the plus side, their ad was fucking spotless. Kudos to
design.
Where is all this rambling leading? Don’t ask me. I just
drive this bus. I most certainly didn’t load it with plastique that’s set to detonate
if I drop before 55 mph. What I’ve been thinking about a lot lately at night
while I’m trying to get a bit of fiction written is escape.
Escapism has a negative connotation in our culture, and I’m
not going to rehash the arguments for why that’s so much elitist bullshit.
Other and better minds have beat that dead horse plenty. What I’ve been
struggling with is how very few escape hatches there are in my life right now.
Living in the desert of the now isn’t doing great things for me.
Which is why I did what I swore up and down I would never
do. I opened up a goddamn World of Warcraft account. I managed to avoid falling
down a Warhole throughout college by virtue of being way too poor to afford the
necessary computer/internet combo, a fact which I concealed with a thick
swaddling blanket of fake smuggetry.
Guys, it’s perfect. It’s everything I was afraid it was
going to be: immersive, beautiful and compelling. Fortunately, by avoiding WOW
for all these years, I seem to have developed the ability to restrain myself
from freefalling into addiction. Which is good because this is a wonderful
vacation. I like not being a cubicle serf for a little while. I like having a
way of rewarding myself for hitting my word count goal. (You see the cleverness
of my nefarious plan? I’ve found a way of paying myself for getting shit done
until I can find a way of actually getting paid for getting shit done. Hell
yes.)
So that’s the score. Twenty minutes of WOW for every time I
hit my word count. So, fellow writers and artsy types, what’s your escape
hatch? How do you manage to limit your own private world suck? Inquiring minds
want to know.
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