Category Archives: Writing

Writing

Blast From The Past: Terracrats

I was going to do a fancy piece with lots of flowery words and statistics to celebrate this milestone, but then I figured that there wasn’t any reason to punish those of you who helped me get here. I don’t have any funny stories ready to go, and I’m feeling too sentimental for the self-deprecation to kick in. So I thought that I would share something from the original Vaults From Uncle Walt. I’ve picked through the stories which survived the Purge of 2000, and chosen one of my favorites. It sums up pretty nicely who I was half my life ago, and it brings back… memories.

Here, reprinted for the first time in at least a decade, I present for your reading enjoyment:

Terracrats:

Lords of this World

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Our next door neighbors were dead. Our house was stolen. The alcohol on our breaths was owned by someone who didn’t even know we existed. We toasted our dominion of the dead and abandoned over a bottle of Tequila. The smoke of clove cigarettes filled the air, mingling with the stench of grief, fear, and loss. Lords of this World.

The house had been well kept, and even the emergency crews that had forced everyone out after the loss of their next-door neighbor and his family had been unable to prevent the touching, but all-in-all, futile gesture of packing all the furniture in plastic wrap. Their homes would be just as they remembered them, though they would never be back to know. And it was thus that we found them, everything perfectly preserved, the final moments of the tragedy recorded in the dust collected in these modern pyramids: no longer homes, now just simply empty tombs of buried lives, of hopes, lost dreams.

The Lords of this World had to climb around the back, where the mudslide had been convicted of breaking and entering: a lesser charge than that of the quadruple murder one door down. So underneath the soiled blue tarp we crawled. And into a house filled with all those buried memories of terror. As the sun sunk beneath the hills, the shadows gave leave to these to bums hiding from the world.

It smelled of mud. That may sound obvious, but it wasn’t at all expected. Maybe we wanted the distinctive odor of the couple who had previously resided. All we got was mud, and the trunk of a pine through the downstairs bathroom. There was no excitement for two seventeen-year-old wannabe dreamers. Just the decay of ruin. There was no inherent glory in defiling an abandoned red-tagged house. So we became Lords of this World. This was to be our domain. This was our place to pretend that the world could be different. This was highly illegal.

The liquor cabinet was on the second storey. A couple of bottles of Monarch Vodka- sure, the cheap shit!- a fifth of Gin, half a bottle of Rum, three-quarters a fifth of Tequila (maybe ten sips of Chambord), a bottle of homemade Kristmas Kaluha and 2 litres of Tonic Water in the miniature fridge that hadn’t worked for a month and a half. Oh, and one can’t forget the forty home-brewed beers just outside the sliding glass doors.

We grabbed the Tequila and Chambord and headed upstairs to check out the view. Just a couple of bedrooms and a plugged-up toilet. So much for the Palace of the Lords: it was a real fixer upper.

It had been dark for maybe twenty minutes, so naturally, these seventeen-year-old Terracrats grew less cautious (until, it is reported, they sang quite loudly with joy- and just a smidgen of drunkenness- and, as I recall, we were severely out of key). We settled down on the third floor to make a dent in the Tequila, but I think it put more of a dent in us. I had a state-imposed curfew I would be missing, my associate had emotional issues we had yet to deal with, his girlfriend (my ex)’s old house was two doors down, and a high school Biology teacher, his wife, and two children had died next door, not even two months prior.

“Lords of this World.” we mumbled back and forth to each other that night. Carpe Nocturne. The music of youth and death played loudly that night, creeping us both out.

Before leaving our Estate, we snuck back down to the second floor in search of flashlights. Considering how drunk we were, that we had only a lighter by which to navigate, and that they were right in front of our faces the whole damn time, I’m surprised we beat the sunrise.

Dread filled my stomach upon our departure across Herren’s graveyard. Sea-stained toys rusted across our path, memorials jumped in front of us like black cats, and the moon howled right back at us. We were traveling from dream through reality to memory:

A week before the slide, Henry, their dog, after two years of uncompromising animosity, suddenly reversed his decision and befriended me, following me home twice. A week before that slide I was ripping my heart out over the love of my life… and investing in another. A week before the slide, I’d had nothing. A week before that slide, I hated him, the son of a bitch.

The morning of:

I awaken to an ambulance in my driveway. “What the hell’s an ambulance doing in our driveway?” “A house slid into the Sound.” “Whose?” “I don’t know.”

The morning of:

I run up the hill, turn the corner. My heart beating through tears on Stand By. Gotta make sure she’s okay, just a little further. Stop. She’s okay. Walk slowly back. Cry tears of grief for my relief.

The morning of:

“Did you hear about Dwight?” “Yeah! There’s a goddamned ambulance in my driveway!”

The mourning of:

“Could you describe him? Was he well liked?”

“Sure, he was hard teacher, but definitely a great guy. Everyone who got to know him liked him.”

Except me…

That night:

“They all died.” “I know… But what about Henry?” “How could you ask that?”

Tears slid down like mud and rain, killing a part of people as surely as it had done Dwight Herren. But there was so much doubt. No one had the answers they so desperately needed. No one knew. At least, not until it was too late. Herren’s memory was crucified on Network News for having violated housing code.

The Lords of this World walked across his grave.

I have left everything as it was ten years ago. Like the tarped-off ruins of life gone sideways, I’d like to leave this “memory” intact. I will say that I’d forgotten just how short my stories were back then. But then again, I was inspired by nearly everything, and had a lot more adventures than I can seem to muster now. Maybe I just needed to be reminded of… things which I seem to have forgotten. Thank you, everyone, for inspiring me to take this stroll down NE Battle Point Drive. I’ve talked a lot about the last time when I was writing almost every day, but I’d forgotten just how much I really liked it. Could I do a better job of it now? Probably. But I don’t know it it would feel the same.

I’ll make a deal with all of you: I’ve got, as of my writing this, 108 views until I reach 2,000 for 2015 alone (December wasn’t my best month), and when I get there, I’ll not only do a special podcast with the Derpdevil (and possibly guest appearances from a couple of other people!), but I’ll sit down and try to do a modern take on Terracrats. I’ll warn you right now, though, that there’s a good chance it will suck. If it doesn’t work, I’ll hang its carcass up as “Bonus Feature”, and think of something else.

Thank you guys for helping me drag my dream a little closer to reality! I’ll see you all again tomorrow as we return back to normal.

-Tex

Writing

Master Of Serenity

Somehow I seem to have maintained my zen-like state for the duration of the afternoon. To be honest, I am just the slightest bit impressed. Normally it takes me nearly forever and a day to calm myself when I have blown my top. Rage is just the flip side of depression, and if there’s anything I’m really good at, it’s being mopey as hell, sometimes for days on end. But today, after the incident with the grasshopper in the parking lot, I felt a level of serenity which I’m normally not accustomed to. I brushed aside all of the frustration and disappointment, and sat down to get back to work. I couldn’t get back exactly to where I’d been before, but the ideas were still there in my head, and I just had to trust that I could get them out again. Sure, they weren’t as beautiful as what had come before, and each near-miss, a tiny stab of heartache, but I stayed with it and managed to get it down, If I’m being honest, though, my favorite part of that entire piece was the epilogue, and that was mainly because it had almost nothing to do with what I’d (failed to have) written. Plus, it either made me look a little more or a little less deranged, depending on how one might view a bald coincidence.

But enough jabs at my lack of hair: it’s time to focus back upon the very best parts of me. I seemed to have discovered a surefire way to find my center in the middle of a storm, and the best part of it is that it only requires a pack of cigarettes and endless supply of grasshoppers. I used to be able to more easily access my happy place, but years and years of falling back in the face of a constant barrage of disappointment and injustice have made it nearly impossible to find. It’s hard to keep an upward glance when you’re caught out in the rain, and by staring at my feet, I’ve missed everything else around me. Pleasant thoughts, like summer breeze, lift upward due to warmth, and the only ones which sink below are scuttled by the chill of sadness driven down by winter winds. Simple serenity, I’ve found, can be discovered in the smallest things, just waiting to be seen. It’s just a matter of letting all the screeching ego simply fade away, and learn to view the world through the eyes of a child again.

I’ve spent the last several years drowning the innocence inside of me, hoping to find the answers I’ve been seeking in the cold reason of adulthood. But all that’s gotten me is an unending stream of stress and misery. In trading youth for understanding, I’ve been left with neither, and the only thing that I can figure is that I’ve gotten it all wrong. The happiest I’ve ever been was when I was still a child, and my whole life lay in front of me, with nothing but endless possibilities as far as I could see. Every day was a new adventure, inspiring me again. From astronaut to baseball player to astrophysicist, each new bit of information launching me ever forward. And through it all, I always knew that I would one day write about it. That was the constant through every other dream: that no matter what I did, I did it so that I would have something I could write about. And as the years marched on, and my options began to thin, much as my hair would in the years which (shortly) followed, so too did my primary dream begin to fade. With every drop in probability, the joy and hope which once defined me continued to recede. Eventually all that was left was the memory of who I used to want to be when I managed to grow up. It never occurred to me to think that growing up would rob me of the very best parts of me.

A Moment of Truth, Presented in the Omniscient Third Person
A Moment of Truth, Presented in the Omniscient Third Person

A single leaping grasshopper in the middle of a parking lot. A man rapidly arriving at the end of what little rope that he’s got left. A thing of beauty, never seen, lost forever in a digital world gone mad. Tensions within the man’s apartment are written on the walls in large, swirling, angry letters spelling in out in great detail each and every slight and misstep committed by the occupants. The smell of hopelessness now permeates the air, the byproduct of the late-night arguments and fading faith in one another. Seven lives, hanging in the balance, each one counting on the other, and disbelieving them, even so. Like animals roaming restlessly, trapped within their cage, these now-empty husks of once fully realized people pace about, bumping into one another, and feel the rage begin to bubble over without the slightest provocation. Hanging above them all, a sense of doom nears palpability. A single spark could set them off, and at least one of them is smoking. But the man outside, having just lit up his cigarette, takes notice of the insect as hops directly in his path. Everything, every little thing then resolves to crystal clarity. The grasshopper is a metaphor, the man begins to realize, for his standing as mere novitiate upon the path toward tranquility. It is a sign that he must let go of all of his pent-up anger, and seek out the words within him once again. He takes a breath, and extinguishes his cigarette, opening the door, and walking back inside. While he has not managed to recapture his inspiration, he has at least found some measure of composure by which he may attempt to finish what he started. He knows that it cannot be the same, but the flicker of his muse has been rekindled and the echoes of his madness still linger in his brain. He breathes deeply, clearing out the doubt and agitation and begins to write again.

Writing

Walking Through Forever

Yeah, it’s going to be one of those days, I can already tell. You know the kind: every thought explores the depths of meaning and perception, and simple tasks unfold before you like a never-ending scroll. I’m not sure exactly what might have set this off, but I think that I’ll just try to roll with it to see where it will take me. I mean, it’s not like drowning myself in metaphor is an entirely new thing for me. Sure, I used to have assistance to reach this frame of mind, but I guess that decades of staring into the void have finally produced results all on their own. This could mean that I’m beginning to take my first steps toward enlightenment, or it could signify that I’m falling down the water slide to madness. Truth be told, I’m really not all that worried about it. I’ve spent years and years trying to keep it all together, and if this should be the day when everything unravels, so be it. It takes a lot of effort to try to appear even slightly less “eccentric” than gladly I’ve become, so why bother with normality? Let’s see what happens when we pull upon the fraying threads of this tapestry. Will the whole thing fly to pieces or will the truth become apparent, liberated at long last from the tyranny of mundane life?

I’d like to go on record here, before we start again, as declaring my sobriety from everything except the caffeinated nicotine which even now is coursing through my veins. I’m not saying that there’s anything wrong with a little altering of one’s perceptions, from time to time, rather that I wished to make it absolutely clear that I’m in (as much as I’ve ever been) my right mind.

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“I think, therefore I am.”

And with that we have established that the reality of self. One knows that he exists because he knows that he exists. Are we just a form by which the universe has chosen to know itself? Are we living in a world which exists apart from us, and yet is one with us, or one which we create within ourselves with every breath we take? Does it extend beyond perception, or fall away to nothingness beyond what we can perceive? If I close my eyes, does it cease to exist, held in memory for it when it may be needed?

Are we agents of Free Will, or slaves to narratives which we ourselves have written long ago, and then cause ourselves upon our births to forget we’d ever done it? What if this life is merely a crucible by which to forge ourselves into the beings which we’ve chosen to become?  Bereft of everything except for the very essence of who we are, we act out life or death scenarios to teach ourselves what we must learn. Might this not explain the sensation of déjà vu? What if we are simply pages we had written while we existed outside of time, or hints which we’ve allowed ourselves to keep us from despair? Is coincidence truly ever so, or are there connections all around for us to crack the code?

And what of everyone living in this world which may or may not be? I can prove my own existence, but not that of another. Can you prove that I exist, and can I prove that you do too? What if the entire world around me is just some sort of living dream, populated by the phantoms which exist only in my mind? Does everyone I meet have a piece of knowledge which I must unlock, aspects of my consciousness designed to move me forward? Am I speaking to myself through strings of written words? I am swimming through a sea of metaphors in search of solid ground.

The only thing which I can prove is the fact of my existence, and then, only to myself. I cannot prove that anyone or anything outside the confines of my mortal consciousness is anything more substantial than a half-remembered dream. And when I am deep within the arms of sleep, am I back in the reality from whence I came, or is it merely another nuanced level for me to figure out? I could make the case, as long as I’m only here arguing with myself, that there have been too many little things for me to just dismiss out of hand. Little tricks of numbers, or double entendre prophecies which sail right before my eyes. Sometimes I feel like I could skip ahead if I only paid attention to the clues I left myself.

Considering that I feel like this, you might wonder, I realize I’m still talking to myself, how I feel about the subject of my death. It would stand to reason that if I were the only game in town, that the very concept of an ending would, at the very least, give me pause. But there are other times when I’d just like it to be done. I’m tired of jumping through my hoops, and have a score to settle with myself. Will I even feel the same, rejoining with the eternal version who made me, or will I come to call him out for all my pain and suffering?

For an atheist, it sounds an awful lot like I have some issues unresolved with faith and spirituality. Or it could be that the backstory was laid down as yet another clue to help me work it out. If that’s the case, then I have got a lot of blood upon my hands. I realize that if no one else is real, then no harm was ever truly done, but still, it seems a bit excessive.

And then there is whisper I’ve not heeded for some time: a small divergence from the theory stated just a couple of paragraphs above. What if everyone I meet is both a version which I’ve molded to fit my narrative, and yet somehow also pulled from someone who actually exists? What if we are all shadows in the dark, muted copies of ourselves living out entire lives as someone else’s NPCs? When I meet someone, are we interacting, or is it just a message on their answering machine?

Note:

You’ve made it through, so I feel I owe you this (if I’m wrong, and you actually do exist): While the first paragraph is from my original post, the rest has been an attempt to recover what was lost when the internet abandoned me. It’s kind of like this:

Additional:

I should also note that I find it… intriguing that as I was tapped into whatever force I draw from when I’m nestled in The Zone, ready to uncover the secrets of reality, my internet went down. According to Comcast, there wasn’t anything wrong. A couple of resets fixed the issue, but they couldn’t figure out why it went down in the first place. And then, having been in a rage since losing what I’d written to the deepest reaches of the ether(net), desperately trying to claw my way back to serenity, I went outside to smoke my sixth cigarette in just over an hour and a half. And what should jump right in front of me, as I was contemplating how to get myself back together? A grasshopper! A grasshopper! I live in the city. There is no real grass in which this insect might have hopped. And yet it popped out right in front of me, like a slap to my sensibilities. And just like that, the rage began to dissipate, and I knew that I could write again. I’m still pissed off, don’t get me wrong, but at least I’ve had a chuckle.

After Dark, Writing

Death By Needle Medicine

Just add water, draw it in-

death by needle medicine.

Falling further into sin-

death by needle medicine.

Fill my veins and spin again-

death by needle medicine.

Death by needle medicine.

Death by needle medicine.

 

No one ever wants to be

a junkie when he grows up,

but they just cannot ever see

everything they’re giving up:

Feel the steel

piercing my vein,

taste the smack

upon my breath.

Dying of thirst

drowning in the rain.

One C.C. of that sweet

and pure old liquid death.

Just add water, draw it in-

death by needle medicine.

Falling further into sin-

death by needle medicine.

Fill my veins and spin again-

death by needle medicine.

Death by needle medicine.

Death by needle medicine.

 

Drill the truth, and hammer home;

draw a flag and raise it high.

Never will you be alone-

not until the day you die.

Blanket warm

and comforting,

fall into

a painless dream.

A requiem

your slumber sings

as you’re falling like the dust

scattered across moonbeams.

Just add water, draw it in-

death by needle medicine.

Falling further into sin-

death by needle medicine.

Fill my veins and spin again-

death by needle medicine.

Death by needle medicine.

Death by needle medicine.

 

One more push, and then it’s done;

find the meaning of your life

and dream of your days in the sun:

no more misery or strife.

Welcome home,

my little child.

Daddy’s here

to keep you safe.

Winters warm

and Summers mild.

There’s no more pain down here:

come slumber in your grave.

Just add water, draw it in-

death by needle medicine.

Falling further into sin-

death by needle medicine.

Fill my veins and spin again-

death by needle medicine.

Death by needle medicine.

Death by needle medicine.

 

Lyrics ©2015 Tex Batmart.

Music ©2015 (eventually) Bad Leon Suave

All rights reserved.

Writing

I Can Do This! A Tale of Exhaustion and Madness

2 Comments

Mind over matter, never mind that I can barely think right now. I had been working on a piece which I may eventually finish, in the unlikely event that I ever get some sleep. But right now I am just holding on to what little threads of consciousness remain, dreading the moment when my wife comes home, for that will mean that laundry time has come. If only I hadn’t built up a tolerance to caffeine, the industrial strength Red Bull which I drank earlier might have had some sort of effect. As it stands now, however, I am locked into a battle of wills with my computer to see if I’ve got what it takes to do this thing on autopilot. That’s not to besmirch the quality of my automatic functions; I am disturbingly efficient when I cut out my higher thinking. I just hope that this makes some kind of sense to anyone who reads it, as I can make no promises about quality control. I’m pretty sure that I used to be able to function almost normally on little to no sleep, but those days have long since passed, and now I’m lucky that I don’t have to figure out how I’m going to operate heavy machinery.

Half asleep, and not even close to human...
Half asleep, and not even close to human…

I apologize if any jokes included seem a bit… deflated. I’m at the point where everything seems funny. If you were to put me in a room with my son and grandson, the epic stream of nonsense that would pour forth from that room would cast serious doubt upon my mental health. But the joke’s on you: My mental health is already suspect! Ha! It’s difficult to be amusing when you know that you can’t tell what’s funny anymore. I’m sure that I can make a couple of people chuckle, now and then, but I don’t know that I’ve inspired belly-shaking laughter, unless it involved the removal of my shirt in front of other people. That’s assuming that they don’t go blind. I’m a fairly pale-skinned individual, and as I tend towards ruddy pain when in the presence of the sun. That means that when I remove my top, it’s like staring at a hairy moon, full and reflective, capable of piercing the defenses of even the most sober of individuals. I mean, it’s dangerous enough when I remove my hat, as the glare from most light sources collects upon my noble skullet, pooling all together, exponentially reflecting outward at the speed of apathetic light.

But what really brings me down, besides my inability to grow hair upon my head, is the knowledge that I seem to be experiencing a second round of puberty. When I was younger, I never really had a pair of boobs, but over the past decade, I have grown into at least a B-cup, and as the amount of hair upon my head decreases, the size of my chest increases. I’d like to think that they are follically inflated, but the truth is that they are of a more natural composition. If I don’t do something soon, I’m going to have to go bra shopping, and I don’t even know where to begin. I mean, sure, I’ll need a certain level of support, but I’d like it if I could still look pretty too. Wow, down the rabbit hole am I. I mean, I’m not interested in dressing like a lady (not that there’s anything wrong with that), but I do have a fondness for kilts, and my silk boxers do feel pretty awesome. Maybe they make pectoral support devices that come in…  more masculine designs. Like something that depicts explosions or something. Yeah, no. I’m just not feeling it.

Not pictured: budding man boobs
Not pictured: budding man boobs

I’ve gotten to thinking that this might not be the best idea that I’ve ever had. I am just a little bit eccentric, and even I manage to take my statements out of context when it suits me. Breaking News: Tex Batmart admits to dressing up like women! You see? I don’t know. It’s hard to judge someone based upon a lack of desire to wear pants. I mean, when I was living in the PNW, pants were slightly more of a necessity. It can get a little cold up there, and I’ve an image to maintain. But I live in California, and most of the time, I only put on clothing to keep from turning into a man-sized lobster. But if I could finally feel the freedom of a kilt, I might learn to relax. Having a soothing breeze upon my nethers couldn’t hurt, either. Mind you, it’s not that I feel a strong desire to run through the world while fully on display, it’s just that I’m not really all that big a fan of pants. I do like wearing suits, though. Weird, right? Exhaustion is a heady vice.

I have begun fade... I hope to hold on for just a little longer.
I have begun fade… I hope to hold on for just a little longer.

As I was typing up that last paragraph, I noticed a couple of spiders creeping toward me to feast upon the shattered bodies of the mosquitoes which I’ve slain today. Normally, I have no problem with spiders carrying out their necessary tasks, but all I ask that they do it where I cannot see them. That’s actually my rule for all insects and “lower” beings which may make their way into my home: They have just as much right to live as me and mine, but if they stumble into sight, I will take them out. The spiders normally do alright, whereas mosquitoes, ants, and roaches creeping in from their home base in the apartment directly above us all seem to be feeling just a little down. Seeing that they’re suffering, I do my best to end their pain, but I just wish that they would find somewhere else to spend their dying moments, as it can be a little hard to bend sometimes.

But I am Death, the Destroyer, and I shall not be stopped. I like to think that they have made up legends about me, and live in fear of the day that the other shoe will drop, as is prophesied in their holy texts. Perhaps I am tempting fate, and summoning a shoe much greater than myself which will come to fall upon me as retribution for my hubris. But what can I do? I’ve laid out the rules quite clearly for them, and if they choose to violate the Neutral Zone, their deaths rest solely upon themselves, not me. For I must defend the boundaries of my own sovereignty, and all which lies within. I guess that I’ve finally found some common ground with my family after all. Of course, I’m talking about bugs, and they’re talking about dirty foreigners, so maybe not. All I know is that one day I will be featured on the local news as that crazy dude running around in a skirt and bra, chasing after tiny creatures and smashing them with my shoe. I just hope that my tan lines aren’t obvious, or I’ll never live it down.

And now I can fade back into unconsciousness.
And now I can fade back into unconsciousness.

Ah! The spider is back again! And it looks ang

Writing

One Week on reddit

It’s been kind of an exciting week for me here. I succumbed to the narcissistic pressure within me, and submitted a few columns to reddit.com, figuring that I had gotten more or less back into form, and was ready for a truly global audience. I wasn’t prepared for the result. Amazingly, my column about Star Trek took right off, and has, to date, gotten more views this week by itself, than almost double the total amount of views I’d had in my best week prior to this one. Of course, reddit is a fickle mistress, and large numbers of people reading me there didn’t translate into much voting, in either direction. After spending almost a week in the r/startrek subreddit, I’ve gotten five votes, two-thirds positive, which have garnered me a total score of… 1 imaginary internet point! I’m trying not to get too hung up on that, as redditors can be unforgiving assholes (I should know), but it still kind of hurts that over two hundred people took the time to read what I had written, and only five had rated it positively. Still, I’ve said from Day One that my main goal in all of this was to give people a chance to read my stuff. I wasn’t expecting everyone to love it, but I had kind of imagined that it might have had more of an effect. Still, though, it’s kind of amazing. People with whom I have absolutely no connections in the real world have stopped and read the words and thoughts which have exited my head, and that, to me, is incredible.

The numbers have gone back to normal now, as I made a decision on Wednesday morning not to drink from that particular well anymore, at least not for a while. I wanted to see how many new readers I could maintain, and now, sadly, I know. It’s kind of wild to see just how this week has skewed the numbers, and I know that April is probably going to be the first month since I’ve started where I don’t increase my readership versus the month which came before it. To be honest, the temptation is there to head back to reddit sometime next month, just so I can try to avoid such a dubious distinction. Or I could try to make my stuff better, I suppose. I’m honestly just please with how easily the words are coming, compared to when I started, and how I can just jump in, even if it’s seven in the evening, and pound out words which, at the very least, make some sort of sense. I mean, I’m not really any closer to my larger goal of writing something that I can sell, but I’ve found my groove, and have built the courage to try out several different things over the past few months. And something that will please my wife: I’ve discovered that I can still write in the mornings, and that I can usually pound out an average column in an hour and a half. That basically means that I can now go looking for a job, free from the worry that it will cause my words to suffer.

The downside is that I now have to come to terms with my fear of everybody, and deal with easing myself back into the Food Service Industry, but luckily, I’ve had almost fifteen years of restaurant experience, with a decade of that spent in management. I know what I am doing when it comes to rocking in the kitchen, and the only thing which has held me back has been my exhaustion at the very notion of returning. It’s not the owners, it’s not the employees, and it’s definitely not the distributors; the component which worries me the most is having to deal with a brand-new set of customers. Well, that and doing interviews, but the latter is more a reflection of my personal bi-polarizing issues, so ultimately, it’s sort of just on me to get myself through that process. But when it comes to the customer experience, I think back to every single customer I’ve had the pleasure of not serving these past four months, and I’m reluctant to go back. But restaurants are generally always hiring, and are usually in need of competent management. And the only way that I can pay off all my bills at this point, is to jump into the deep end, and become Mr. Manager once more.

I’ve sort of gotten used to living this life of carefree indolence, and loathe to imagine the day when it must come to an end. But all good things must do so, if we are to truly appreciate them. I could be wrong, of course, and the only thing that stands between myself and happiness is my inability to accept myself for who I truly am: someone for whom putting on pants is the moment when he knows that his day will never stand a chance of recovering. If I was single, I suppose that I could travel the country on the backs of couches, seeking out just Wi-Fi, nicotine, and the occasional full belly. But the fact is that I would have never made it this far without the love of my dearest wife, and should the day come when she’s had enough of my shenanigans, I don’t imagine that I’ll be able to really handle anything in the manner expected of an adult. There will be crying, floor-pounding temper tantrums, and snot running down my face like a river flowing freely from my nose. And then I’ll slip back into habits better off forgotten, seeking solace in my liberation from overwhelming pain, and before I know it, I’ll wake up in Billings, Montana with a tattoo of Crying Rose, and naked, save for a strategically placed necktie. Poor Bad Leon Suave, I’m sure that he doesn’t entirely deserve that.

See? Watching the worst case (and yet, strangely entertaining) scenarios play out inside my head is still more comforting than the knowledge that I’m going to have to get (another) job! I’m not sure what that says about me, but I hope that you’ve enjoyed reading all about it. I’d say that I am now heading off to bed, but I think that I’ll do some pity-voting back on reddit.

The cowboy rode off into the sunset, but left his steed behind.
The cowboy rode off into the sunset, but left his steed behind.

-Tex

Writing

Language

One of the things that I have come to appreciate since becoming at least conversationally fluent in Spanish, is just how fascinating the notion of language is, in and of itself. A language is not just a compilation of vocabulary and rules concerning grammar, but the expression of a culture as it attempts to put order to the world. This is what has caused the most problems in translations of ancient texts, aside from degradation of the source material: our lives are so fundamentally different from those our ancestors could have hoped to experience that there is very little common ground upon to which one might hope to base a translation. Not only would ancient peoples not have words for common technological marvels, but they would also be bereft of words to that might describe the very concepts that go behind them. How could I possibly explain to someone living five thousand years ago what it is, exactly, that I am doing now. I mean, if it’s a pain to just explain what a blog is to my grandparents, who have, at least, some experience with these newfangled computing machines, what hope would I have of explaining it to tribal nomads?

I bring this up because I have noticed changes in the way I think, depending on the language which I’m speaking. I think that was harder to wrap my head around than new words and a system of conjugation that actually made sense. Take, for instance, the concept of liking something. In English, I would say, I like to watch movies; whereas in Spanish, I would have to turn it all around, and say, Me gusta ver películas, or: It pleases me to watch movies. And where I might love doing something in English, in Spanish, it enchants me. Just a slight cultural shift, but once you’ve seen it, it’s always going to be there. My journey has been made easier by my decent vocabulary in my native tongue, and there has been more than one occasion when I have understood more than I might otherwise have hoped, simply because I was familiar with an underappreciated cognate. Thank you, Latin roots. In English, I am the master of my destiny. I like things, I love things. No matter what I am saying, what’s important in the sentence is that I am saying it. Spanish, on the other hand, is almost entirely dismissive of the speaker. When I am talking to someone, I rarely use pronouns, except to emphasize a point. It’s no wonder then, that such a culture shock exists for Latinos when they come here.

I’ve had many Latino friends tell me that, sure, they make more money here, but they’re also spending so much more. But the one thing that they cannot seem to get over, at least the ones who’ve come here as adults, is the pace of life itself in the United States. Everybody seems to be stretched to their breaking point, and we’re making money just to spend it, without leaving any time for ourselves to do things which might bring us some enjoyment. We set our jaws and grind through our days, and wear ourselves down to where we cannot take it anymore, and then we get right back up and do it all again. And in this exchange of cultures, it seems that nobody is truly winning. Kids born here cannot hope to compete against a work ethic that was never meant to go for hours, and we’ve managed to export diabetes wholesale down to Mexico.

About the work ethic thing: I am not saying that one group of people is inherently better than another. What might be viewed as sloth when it comes to  the citizenry, could easily be interpreted as someone simply trying to pace themselves for a couple of full-time shifts a day. And while someone might give their all, work hard, never complain, and keep going no matter what, that kind of pace is inherently untenable, and I’ve seen it rip away decades of life that someone will never have the chance live. A sprinter is effective because of the distance run, and the time he budgets himself to recuperate. You cannot sprint all throughout a marathon, or you will die before you reach the second marker. Maybe it’s time that we learn how to slow the pace a little. We work so hard during the day (and often the night, as well), that we leave no time for ourselves or for our families. Sure, we have newest, coolest stuff, but we’ve forgotten what it means to be human.

I seem to have drifted a bit from my original intention, rather like how Latin spread throughout the Western world only to become Italian, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Romanian, not to mention coloring my native tongue, as well. I just wanted to bring up how cool language was, not get into a diatribe about socioeconomic policies. Sorry. I guess that’s been happening more frequently this past week. It’s just that I seem to have opinions about right and wrong which have been updated through the process of immersing myself into a group of people with a background which I do not share. And that’s the magic of language, really. If you take the time to learn a second language, or a third, or more, it can not only allow you to communicate with the people you might have otherwise been unable, but the languages themselves can offer up a new way of thinking, a new way of perceiving the world around you. If you study language, you can read back through the story of mankind itself, see where we came from, and how we got to where we are today. The evolution of language is like the evolution of species, and it’s fascinating to see how far we’ve come.

I hate it when boarders cross me!
I hate it when boarders cross me!

Tomorrow I am going to try to do something a little more lighthearted, as a way of thanking everyone who’s come and considered all the heavy things I’ve recently had to say. Thank you everyone, and have a wonderful weekend!

-Tex

Writing

Motivational Sneakers

Somehow I’ve finally managed to wake up a little. It was touch and go for a little while, but I seem to be at least somewhat conscious now, so let’s get this thing going. After attempting at least six different posts, most of them about how I really need to sort through the hundreds of digital photographs I’ve got sitting on my hard drive, I managed to finally find a rhythm and get something written. It started out simply enough, a ridiculous sales pitch for a group of mythological creatures, but as I kept writing it, I discovered something soul-crushingly beautiful just beneath the surface. I don’t know what I will eventually do with it, but I think that I might have to fiddle with it a bit and see how much more I can tease out of it before going back to edit. It’s nice to know that I still have some new ideas floating around inside my brain. Most of the time, when I set out to write something, it turns into a tale of heartbreak and unrequited love, and to be honest, I’m kind of done with that. There are so many other types of disappointment which I’ve yet to cover that it seems a little foolish to only focus on that one.

Of course, I’m really good at starting stories, but notoriously bad at finishing them. I’m trying really hard not to build this one up too much in my head because I don’t want to let myself down too hard when I fail to finish it. I’m not sure if I’m being pessimistic or realistic, or simply looking for a way to get out of something so that I don’t have to do the one thing which I love more than any other. That’s not fair. I love sleeping the best. But right after that is definitely writing. Probably. It’s hard to say, really. I enjoy it more than I think I’m willing to admit to myself, but the reality is that I’m also far too eager to do anything else the moment that it begins to resemble work of any kind. One of the advantages to doing this blog is that, in forcing myself to write nearly every day (managing an average of a little over a thousand words a day, even taking into account the disturbingly high number of days off I seem to shower upon myself), I am able to get a flow going at some point, whereas before I might only get as far as glaring at my laptop in a silent rage for even existing. Now if only I could do the same for physical exercise.

Both my wife and I could stand to shed a couple dozen pounds or so, and it’s probably better to get started on that before our extra mass begins to cause irreparable damage to our frames and organs. And we’ll have to get fit as a team, because I’ve found that if it’s only one spouse getting thin, it’s usually not for their significant other. After a certain amount of time, you get used to one another, and the only reason you want to look good naked is because there is someone you are hoping to impress. And so my hatred of physical activity has come face to face with my fear of losing my wife to someone who has muscles (or who is, at the very least, in possession of a much smaller beer gut). I mean, I know that I will most likely begin to feel better once I’ve gotten rid of the extra poundage, but going to the gym means putting on pants and leaving the house. And that means that not only do I have give up my plans for doing absolutely nothing, but I actually have to follow through on a completely different set of plans.

And suddenly my day has filled right up, and I feel like every moment has been carefully planned so as to insure that I don’t have even a moment of freedom to enjoy the simple pleasures of sloth. Mind you, I haven’t even started yet, and I’m already feeling this way. I suppose that it is a testament to my fear of change that even considering a different routine can incite a panic between my ears. I feel like maybe I should have been born a mountain, so that the only change is measured in ages, and no one would say anything negative about how big I was. And on the plus side, I am still completely enamored of the snow. It’s just a little embarrassing to realize that my two-year old grandson is more reasonable than me about certain, basic things. Then again, I don’t poop my pants, or randomly shout at shrubbery (at least, not in front of other people), so I guess I shouldn’t feel too bad. Of course, the very fact that I’m pleased that I’m more mature than a two-year old under certain circumstances speaks volumes about my level of maturity. Whatever. Qué será, será. Así es la vida.

Okay, my arguments of procrastination may have just been invalidated. I just bent down to pick a toy up off the floor (from a comfortable, seated position in my chair), and had to spend a couple of minutes massaging my ribs until the pain dissipated. That’s kind of pathetic, even for me. I know that I’ve taken pride in being an old man for as long as I can remember (at least the past few minutes or so), but this level of eld is usually reserved for people who once lived through the 1950’s. I hate it when I have to take positive steps; it’s so much easier to just sit here and lob sarcasm at the world. But with a granddaughter on the way, and sixteen years until my grandson becomes a man, I suppose that I should make at least some progress toward the feasibility of my own survival. And my son most likely wouldn’t mind if I stuck around a bit longer.

And there it is, the motivational kick in the butt which I have been searching for: the faces of my son, and grandson, and an artist’s rendition of the little girl who will soon be popping into my life. Though the years before me are pressing down with a weight that I can barely contemplate, I would really like to see my son and grandchildren grow into the adults they are to become. That means that I’m going to have to learn to eat something besides junk food, and get serious about fulling switching away from tobacco, and get up off my fat ass and drag myself down to the gymnasium and break a sweat (and then start exercising). All the while I just want to scream out to the world that it’s not fair, but that seems a little hypocritical, or at least my son would think so. I guess that the time has come for me start acting like an adult, and let the grumpy old man inside me take a nap. But I swear I’m going to snap if those damned kids don’t get off my lawn!

And now, because you’ve all been so patient with me as I hash out the obvious, I’ll share the first couple of paragraphs from:

Flying Monkeys- Are They Right For You? 

As I sit here in my evil lair, plotting world domination, I am surrounded by the constant flapping of monkey wings, and, to be honest, it’s just the slightest bit off-putting. Sure, I got a great deal on them, but no one ever warns you of the downsides to controlling an Air Force comprised of mutant primates. First of all, they smell like a cross between cabbage and misery, and it’s no good trying to get them in the bath, as there is nothing more frighteningly fierce and unpredictable than a moistened airborne monkey. Secondly, they never seem to know when to just shut the hell up. I’m almost glad I didn’t splurge on the translation helmets, as chirps and grunts are more than enough. Considering the things which I’ve seen them do, I’m certain that I don’t care to know what’s on their minds. And finally, there is the issue of the little monkey uniforms. I spent weeks designing something both practical and striking, but the effect is quickly negated when they refuse to put on pants. Sure, it adds a new level of terror to the battlefield, and is a subtle shift toward psychological warfare, but the fact is that it is also unprofessional, and I simply cannot tolerate that level of tomfoolery.

Now, don’t get me wrong: these winged fiends are an incredible investment. I have never seen a ceiling so free of cobwebs in my entire life. And the lot of them are just adorable beyond description as they scoot about with little brooms and dustpans cleaning up the lab. Sometimes, when I’m feeling just a little down, or in the rare moments when I am weakened by a longing for companionship, it’s nice to sit down on the couch and curl up with a minion and check out what is on T.V. A note of caution, however: Make sure that monkey knows that it is just a platonic snuggle, or there will be repercussions that neither of you had planned for. Winged monkeys can be a little jealous and possessive, so it’s best to maintain a certain degree of professional distance. That being said, if you can stand the smell, they are wonderful to cuddle, especially in the dead of winter. I know that I have saved hundreds of dollars on my heating bill by turning down the thermostat and grabbing a blanket and a monkey before I go to bed.

My only problem now, however, is that I’ve decided to retire from a life of ill intent, and as a private citizen, I will no longer be in a position to care for such a large cohort of flying monkeys. As I scale down my operations to something more manageable in the coming months, I really won’t have the time or resources to keep them healthy, and that’s where you come in. I’ve been talking to some people from down at the office, and they’ve had nothing but glowing reviews of you. A real up-and-comer, they tell me, diabolical and ruthless to the core. Let me tell you, when I was your age, I figured that I didn’t need anyone but me to make my mark upon the world, but I think I could have truly benefited from the help that only a winged monkey can provide. You don’t want to get so caught up in minor tasks that you never quite get around to bending the human race to your will. Seriously, kid, it’s too easy these days to get sidetracked, and then by the time you have everything up and running, you’ll find that whichever governmental agency you’re up against has already had time to get entrenched, and once that happens, not even a force two dozen monkeys strong can help you reach your objective.

As you can see, I need to go back and smooth over the tone a little, as it changes from infomercial to conversation a little clumsily, but I kind of like where it is heading. I don’t know. We’ll see.

UPDATES FROM YESTERDAY:

I still don’t have any news to report about my grandmother, but I’m hoping that a lack of information is a good thing. As soon as I hear something, I’ll be sure to pass it along.

-Tex

By popular demand, I’m going to start putting the Featured Images at the end of these posts, as I’ve heard many people complaining that they wanted to see them without having to go to Facebook.

The Saddest Clown
Fatmart is saddened by the realization that physical effort will be required.
Writing

Pandering

One of these days I’m going to have to bust out something in Spanish or British (I’m well-versed in the extra “u” and lorries) to accommodate my new readers. I’d love to do something in Norwegian, but aside from an expression or two which I don’t know how to spell, I’m really not conversant (My great-grandmother is turning in her grave). Thank the makers for translation programs. One of these days, I need to read my blog on my wife’s phone to see how the interwebz are doing in their translations of my work. Of course, the collected knowledge of the internet probably has a better vocabulary than I do, but nowhere near my sense of style. Someday I’d like to transfer my consciousness to the very core of the internet, so that my overwhelming snark and acerbic wit can color all of human knowledge. Like if you search for Edgar Guest, your computer or smartphone or neural integration just shuts down and refuses to let you play with others. Ah, a boy can dream, can’t he? Okay, enough pandering, on to the shameless self-promotion:

And while I’m covering things that aren’t entirely relevant to what I’ll be writing about today, I’d like to take a moment to encourage you to “like” my professional page on Facebook, Tex Batmart- Writer, and follow me on Twitter: @texbatmart. They’re not much, but I’m sort of attached to them. In the coming weeks, I’m going to try spending a little more time on both, attempting to build my readership in case the day ever comes that I decide to write something that I can hope to feed my family with (by selling, of course. I wish it was as simple as throwing words down the throats of my family to fill their bellies and keep them healthy). Over the course of these past few months, I’ve seen the number of my readers grow, and though you are all still part of a very exclusive group, at least the word is spreading. It’s probably for the best that almost no one was reading the nonsense that I was putting out in December, just groping around in the dark, trying to remember how to write. And as the year progresses, I hope to continue improving (and entertaining), and make it worth your while to come and give me a visit. Thank you!

So I’ve been trying to think of some sort of project I want to get funded on Kickstarter. I mean, I know what I want to do, but I can’t think of any of the PBS Pledge Drive type gifts to offer to the kind and decent men and women who are good enough to subsidize me. I’d offer an evening spent in my company while I prepare one of the three things that I can cook really well, but I don’t know if I’d be willing to dip into the Fund money to shell out for a plane ticket. I just need to find a couple of wealthy patrons in the Bay Area who like to visit small apartments in the East Bay and throw money at the poor. I’m okay with pity. As a matter of fact, I’d rather be awed for my magnificence, but I’ll take what I can get. I’ve finally gotten into a rhythm I can work with, and having to find a legitimate source of income is going to throw everything into disarray. Heck, I’m almost at the point where I can sit down and think about writing things outside of this blog, and though that may not seem all that impressive, for me it’s kind of huge.

Last week (or maybe it was the week before), I started on piece that had nothing to do with anything that I had planned on writing. For the first time in years, the words just dripped from my fingertips, and as I helped the characters to dance, I found myself genuinely interested in discovering where the story might be headed. I don’t know how far I’ll get in this, as I haven’t been sticking with it (and yes, I am aware that I need to write things that exist outside of this website if I intend to someday be financially independent), and I don’t know if it will pan out. But it felt really good to just set the stage and let things happen as the may.

Part of my problem, I believe, is that I really don’t have a dedicated area which is respected as off-limits to everyone who isn’t me trying to write. That includes my son, and wife, and the me that is catching up on T.V. shows that I recorded back when I was working and now need to watch to free up my D.V.R. Since I’ve come to learn how to write in the morning hours, when no one else is up, I may have to push this blog back a little further in the day, and start off with a couple of hours on whatever fiction I’ve got going. Mind you, that would involve taking positive and intelligent steps toward building a better future, so I can guarantee that I’ll even try it. But hey, at least I’ve given it some thought, and I’m not too obese yet to be unable to pat myself on the back.

It’s kind of weird: when I was younger, I literally couldn’t shut up for all the ideas that were jockeying to get out of my head. I had so much that I wanted to tell the world, and I had the energy of youth to propel me. Now, I think, I’ve got better things to say, but almost two decades of compromise and waiting for the future have made me a little gun-shy. I talked a little about it yesterday, when I mentioned my abject terror at the very concept of speaking to another person on the telephone. I’m so caught up in worrying about all the stupid things that I never seem to get around to trying. I mean, the worst thing that someone could do is to say that they didn’t like what I had written, and tell all of their friends that I was some sort of pretentious hack. Okay. That might actually crush me. I was hoping to allay my fears by holding silly outcomes up to ridicule, but that one seems genuinely plausible.

And I’m not fishing for compliments. Sure, everyone likes to hear nice things about themselves, but I’m just trying to save a couple bucks on therapy by cutting out the middleman and asking myself directly what I think.

*  *  *

I got a call from my son’s school informing me that he is sick, and wants to come home. I’ve just gone and picked him up, and he does, in fact, look Epically Pathetic. I’ve laid him down in bed, and he’s been kind enough to let me finish typing up this column before starting in on what programs he’d like to have wash over him as he lays curled up in a vegetating state (as opposed to a vegetative state, which would be entirely more worrisome). I hate this part about being a dad. I just want to know that he’s okay, so we can get back to our regularly scheduled fights over who is the Alpha Male (hint: under my roof, it’s still me. And, strictly speaking, his twenty-six year old (or is he older?) brother-in-law is next in line for the job, should I become incapacitated. Don’t get me wrong: I’m always down with quiet time. But I hate to see my little Minkey suffer, and wish him a speedy recovery.

Tomorrow evening, I’ll be posting the third installment of Blast From The Past, my After Dark series featuring the very best of my old blog on MySpace. This next chapter will pick up where the last one left off (with a possible flashback to an earlier post or two), and carry on until the birth of David William. Also, at some point I’ll be writing up a review of the weekly comic book series, Injustice: Gods Among Us (and yes, I know that it was created to hype up the fighting game of the same name, but that in no way diminishes just how awesome it has become). I’ll also be reviewing Doctor Who: Legacy and probably something else, when I get the chance.

For my new readers, The After Dark series are usually posted between 5 and 8 p.m., Pacific. I don’t really have a schedule for what days I will be posting them, aside from Blast From The Past, which I’ve been doing as an homage to #throwbackthursday. If you want to catch up on that series, the first chapter is here and the second is here. I hope you all have a wonderful Wednesday, and I look forward to seeing you all back here tomorrow.

Same Batmart Time, Same Batmart Channel

-Tex

Writing

Humour

Going after an intentional laugh is much harder than it looks. Do it right and everyone laughs, and pays no mind to how the sausage was made. Do it wrong, and you’re just this guy complaining loudly at the world. You might as well grab your cardboard and Sharpie and head down to the corner if that’s all you’ve got, because no one wants to hear the jokes that almost were. The equation is tragedy plus time equals comedy, but if you drain the barrel too soon, you just get an old man screaming incoherently about his lawn from the balcony of his fancy downtown loft. I’ve got tragedies in high-yield savings accounts, and I’ve got self-doubt in long-term bonds, but I’ve noticed that when I try to make an early withdrawal, the penalties are outrageous! Maybe a pity chuckle, but that’s about it. And now I’ve wasted a truly epic story wherein I look completely ridiculous on a mere chortle, at best. Of course, if you wait too long, your metaphors get all sorts of intermixed, and what may have only been worth a brief guffaw, now tastes like bitter vinegar.  There’s a lesson to be learned from all of this, but let’s be honest: it’s still early in the morning, and I’m just amazed that I am ambulatory and coherent enough to have kept on topic for an entire paragraph.

The humour which I am best at is of the self-deprecating sort, the type which I once used to try and woo the ladies. Having been with my wife for almost nine years, this is not a skill set that I’ve been able to consistently maintain over time, mainly because I don’t believe that my wife would appreciate me trying to build a harem. Actually, I’m kind of with her on that. I’ll take the high road here, and set aside the jokes about how living with one woman is more than sufficient for my daily recommended intake of nagging (not to mention that I wouldn’t be able to afford a place large enough to house all of their shoes), and instead say that there is only one of me to go around, and that I’m inclined toward sloth, so really, I don’t think it would be advantageous to advertise the fact to that many people all at once. Disappointing potential mates isn’t something that you tend to want to include on your resumé. That isn’t to say I haven’t flirted over the years. Ribald jokes have a way of making the day fly by, and alleviate the sheer boredom of the workday. Actually, come to think of it, I don’t know if those ladies knew that I was flirting; there’s a real possibility that they may have thought that I was just genuinely funny. I suppose that’s for the best.

I once was in a relationship with two women at the same time. It wasn’t anything secretive or underhanded. Rose, the woman I’d been dating for a couple years decided that she wanted to start playing the field, as I was the only guy that she’d been with since her divorce had been finalized (and that was not my fault). So she did her best to maneuver me into transferring my affections to another young lady, Amy, whom she thought would be more appropriate (and who, for some reason, seemed to want to be with me). It was all cloak and dagger, with the two of them conspiring in the dead of morning whilst I was passed out on the couch. When everything came to light, I handled it in a calm and measured manner, like the sober sort of fellow that I am: I stormed out of the apartment and threw a temper tantrum in the woods for a couple of hours until my pack of smokes ran out. I came back and informed the both of them that I wasn’t some sort of testosteronic plaything that one friend could loan another, and that, while I couldn’t stop my girlfriend from breaking up with me, I sure as hell didn’t intend to hook up with her hand-picked successor. But then my girlfriend (well, at that point, I suppose she was my ex) cheated (and I’m going to leave that one a wide, wide berth), and told me she would only be okay if she knew that I was taken care of.

It wasn’t really Amy’s fault. Rose had backed me into a corner, and I had no alternative, as I was out of smokes, and Rose had the only pack. So I agreed to give it a shot with the girl who seemed to love me, all the while running through escape routes which I could fall back upon as soon as Rose was gone. It never actually occurred to me to give Amy a real chance, or to reevaluate my love for Rose in the face of my dismissal. I was young and sure and angry, and if I have learned anything throughout the years, it’s that that is the secret recipe for success. So I did my best to remain cool and distant while Amy did everything she could to not let the man she loved slip away from her. Her efforts were ultimately futile, and she saw no benefit, but eventually I looked back, and paid attention, and took to heart the lesson that she’d been trying to beat into me: apparently I am deserving of someone who loves me. Go figure.

My separation from Rose didn’t last terribly long, as the man whom she’d been chasing was the type of scum even your hot pool boy can’t get rid of. He’d been happy enough to take her for her money, as well as certain other… offered valuables, but had no intention of ever leaving his wife behind, or magically transforming into even the most rudimentary human being. Rose spent three months trying to chase him, a blitzkrieg of failed seduction, before finding me one day and apologizing, asking me to take a break from Amy so that I might make her “feel beautiful again.” Who was I to argue? The woman who I’d wanted to grow old with (though, to be fair, she had a bit of a head start) had come back to me, asking me kiss away all of the hurt which she’d been forced to suffer when she took a chance and cast me aside. The worst part was that I actually felt better after, at least until she said that she was going back to Eastern Washington to stay a while longer with her mom.

In Rose’s absence, I did my best to try and be a little more attentive to the woman who never sought to use me. I had the tiniest notion of eventual wisdom starting to poke up through my subconscious like a blackhead, and every now and then realized that I had a chance to spare her the pain which I had felt, but most of the time I was still wrapped up in my own self-pity, and we wound up suffering together. See what I meant about comedy taking a turn? I had a humorous take on a painful time going, and then it just slipped a gear, and now I’ve gone all melancholy. If I were to take my own advice from 1,100 words ago, I should start prepping up a sign which reads “LISTEN TO ME WHINGE ON ABOUT THAT TIME WHEN I WAS YOUNG AND DIDN’T KNOW BETTER.” On the flip side I could scrawl, “WILL BE CAUTIONARY TALE FOR $$$!” Actually, I kind of want to do that now. Stupid Batmart, not understanding sarcasm. Or irony, apparently.

I’ve skipped ahead now to a couple days after Rose came back. There was an awesome morning which included activities that most guys hope will happen to them, and another day involving a game of tennis where I was, somehow, the ball. Eventually I plan to write the story of these years, so if you really want the skinny, you’ll just have to wait. Let’s pretend this is a family-friendly blog, in that occasionally, members of my family read it. What came to pass was the most surreal experience of my entire life (more so than shopping at FoodMax whilst on mood-altering substances, or telling my son’s teacher (the one responsible for his instruction in English) to speak to me in Spanish so that I could understand her): I found myself living in a polyamorous relationship. And for the first three weeks it was amazing. There was a better-than-average chance that someone wouldn’t have a headache on any given day, and I ate so many sandwiches that I began to tire of them. I thought that somehow I had shown the older generation that their binary love connections were outmoded, and that I had found a better way. My ego, which at the best of times is so large as to be unwieldy, had been inflated to monstrous proportions. It was only a matter of time until the other shoe would drop.

Imagine, if you will, a red stiletto thrown downward at a passerby from the top of your local Walmart (I realize that this seems like a plausible occurrence in the world of Tex Batmart, so I feel obligated at this point to mention that this is a metaphor, and not something which actually happened to me). When women live together they wind up involuntarily sharing certain things: makeup, bath products, their boyfriend’s razor, etc. They tend to also want to do things with each other, such as shopping and letting me know I left the toilet seat up again. But there is one more thing that they always seem to do together, and it almost killed me. I fear to name it, lest its power be renewed, but suffice it to say, the fourth week of our lives as an unconventional realization of love was to be our last. Just like Superman and Doomsday brought Metropolis down around them in the winter of 1992, two superpowered forces came to blows during that autumn of 2000. Rose and Amy had been a bit standoffish lately, trying to come to terms with what it meant to live like we’d been living, but that final week of September, they finally found common ground and turned their sights on me.

Afterwards, they asked me where I’d taken off to for those 3-5 days, and why I’d left in such a hurry. I answered only that a man should be careful what he wishes for, and then, judging their reactions, ran away again.

Wow, it looked pretty grim there for a moment, didn’t it? I managed to pull it out, though. I just wanted to mention that though I have included some gender-based humour, this anecdote is firmly based in fact, and the only way I’ve managed to come to terms with this difficult time in my life is to turn it into an amusing narrative. Rose and Amy (probably not their real names) were wonderful (at times) and complicated people, and the sides of them I’ve shared have been shown for comedic purposes only. Lord knows what either of them would write as a rebuttal.

In other news, I paused the story that I had been working on last week, and started up something completely different. The new project is going well, and I’ll be jumping into that as soon as I am finished here. I want to thank everyone who has been reading this over the past couple of months, and ask that if you have enjoyed this blog, to share it with your friends.

Thanks everyone, and have a wonderful Tuesday!

-Tex