Background music is courtesy of iTunes. iTunes
is not bad, yet I’m not convinced that I wouldn’t be better of returning to
Media Monkey. Today’s blog begins with “Embryo” by Pink Floyd playing in the
background.
When I first started this blog I had
intended to produce all sorts of profound ponderings about religion and
politics, two things which, like it or not, I believed touch our lives on a
daily basis. Well, that quickly degenerated into a couple of quickie book reviews
and – that was it!
As I like to brag whenever I have the
chance: I am a published author with bunches of book sales in legitimate book
outlets. Does anybody remember Borders? However, the truth is more complicated.
Those “books” aren’t great works of fiction. For the most part, except for the
parts I made up out of whole cloth, they are non-fiction tomes. My skills are,
and remain, as a putter-down of lots of words in a short amount of time. I can
fill up space, but except for the work of a skilled editor, my wife, my words would
amount to little more than aimless dribble, wasting paper that might have
otherwise been more productively used in the toiletries department. Not to
mention that, left to my own devices, I would probably use up my word processor’s allotment of
commas sooner than you can count to 2,000 words.
Of course, I’m not a total loss. In
order to “prove” myself I did write, for a short period of time, a “humor”
column in a Canadian ad-rag. I guess that would technically have made it a “humour”
column. But, no matter, it was damn funny (I thought) and I did get paid. It
was in Canadian money which after conversion seems a little less impressive. Why
in the hell would anybody pay you X-dollars and 72 cents? Couldn’t they just
round it up?
This brings me back to the subject of
the first paragraph: this blog and its true purpose. Writing is like riding a bicycle,
sort of. Maybe you never forget how to ride but you sure as heck do get rusty. I
needed to work out some of the wobble, get back to where I could stand on the
handlebars while coasting downhill at 25 miles per hour, on a gravel surface.
When I re-entered the blog world I made
a decision to avoid the navel-gazing and attempt to put together a readable and
potentially humorous 700 or so words. It’s not as easy as I thought it might
be, especially when the approach taken has been sometimes embarrassingly close
to a personal journal.
Current tune on the playlist: “Noah’s
Dove” by 10,000 Maniacs. This is perhaps one of the most meaningful songs ever
written. Perhaps. It sounds like it might be anyway. The truth is I can’t
understand a thing that Natalie Merchant sings. But it sure sounds deep.
But back to unfunny navel gazing. The
name I chose for this entry was D-Day. Tomorrow is D, meaning diagnosis, day. I
can’t pretend that I’m unconcerned about a biopsy, which, at best, will say you
hurt like hell for no good reason at all. At worst it will identify a type of
cancer. Yet, in all truthfulness, I’m not all that concerned at this point. I
have a been-there done-that attitude. Whatever happens, will happen. The
problem, as I tell my wife, is that, in spite of my agnostic/atheistic leanings
God really likes me. The downside to this apparent fondness is that potentially
means he’d like to see me sooner than not.
So how does this relate to all the nonsense
leading to this point? Well, as I said, if not for my wife, my writing-creds
would consist of unwritten chapters to never published books. If not for the borrowed
or co-opted strength of my wife my stoic bravery in facing the dreaded “C” word
would more likely take the appearance of a wiggly-kneed mass of jello attempting
to a unicycle across Niagara Falls. (And if that last sentence ain't proof that
she’s not editing this mess, I don’t know what is.)
The final song in tonight’s blog set: “Ain’t
No Way” by Little Bill.
