The word ‘meh‘ isn’t much of anything; it isn’t a word, not even a thought. But it does reflect our mediocre lot, this meh species of ours. 
Rather than being clever, as we purport, we have addled ourselves with half-realizations mirroring our stasis. Meh. We live emptiness, half to and from nothing, cloaked in a pretended indifference that we use to mask our terror and ignorance. That’s our meme: not bad, not good, just sitting in the back, waiting for class to end. 
Plagued by likes, tweets and blogs, anything to avoid the realization of our inevitable demise, our dull species continues back to irrelevance, our genesis, a meh meme of our end.
Tag Archives: writing process
Master Nate
I stretched out in the grass, the lawn sloping away into an almost epically long view, the trees in a horseshoe at the far side and the city above. 
Kristie was asleep beside me. We had finished our finals, Third Year done, and summer was here. I breathed out lightly, almost happy, my elbow tucked perfectly in. That’s when I saw him surge out of the corner of my eye, my old high school teacher, Master Nate.
“Vicks!” He stood over me, awkwardly perving down my top. “How are you doing? What a day! What a day!” I closed my eyes and wished him away. 
But he was still there, his narrow eyes, big nose and lips like Ichabod Crane. “Who’s your lovely friend?”
“Who’s this?” Kristie sat up.
His hand came jutting out, hairier than I remembered. “Nate Doyle. Pleased.”
“Master Nate.”
He blinked hard, dark white spittle at the corner of his mouth. “What’s that, Vicks? What?”
I lurched up, banging the grass off my jeans. “I told her about you, Master Nate.”
His mouth opened and closed, a large-mouth bass gasping for water. “I would have done anything for you. Literally anything.”
“This is the guy?” Kristie zipped up her top. “Jesus fuck.”
“Vicks, no.” His eyes bulged, his chin jutted out. “Literally. Anything.”
“Master Nate masturbates.” I couldn’t feel my arms. I wondered if this was what a heart attack was like.
His eyes looked wild, a rodent in a trap. 
“You’re a good girl, Vicks. I know that. But you’re hurting me. You know that.”
“I should call the police.” Kristie got her phone out of her purse. “Let’s do that.”
“Lit-er-al-ly. An-y-thing.” He punctuated each syllable with a thrust of his hand.
“So what do you do? It’s just 9-1-1?”
And then he turned away and was suddenly crazily running, swerving toward the darkness of the trees.
I thought about having a rifle, lining him up, breathing in, shooting, how he would fall, the little thing he was, and how that would be that.
Vicks stared after him and then at me. “That guy taught you?”
“He was the head of the department.”
My Stupid Freewill
I am dumb, looking at the screen.
Only just able to raise my finger, I click again. 
I am non-thinking, the opposite of my brain working, and believe there to be a link, somehow secret, that will inspire, move me in a direction, anywhere.
But I stay thick and slow, stuck. There is nothing. I go around again, the same pages, the same things, the same morbid reflections, the same sentimental desires, and I know that I will not click on anything new, that I will keep circling in, trapping myself in this concentric hell. An email arrives and I have to respond to that. I have to get up. I have work, things I must do, and already am thinking back to just now, having this time to do whatever I wanted and doing nothing, absolutely nothing.
I should have done something real and certain. I promise myself that I will do that, the next chance I have.
My Whirling Brain
I don’t drink coffee. And for good reason. My brain is on constant whirl. It starts from the moment my eyes are half open. 
My dream? What was that? What did I do? I was a lawyer? I was that. And a murderer? No, that was him. And he got off. 
I was all right. My health was good, even if I always had the pain deep in my back and ribs. What was the point of any of this? I was alive. Yes. I had to get to work. I had to get back to the book. How were the Leafs? Oh right. Shit.
Sometimes I want to hide from my head, get into the corner of it and let it spin on itself. It never stops, whirling from the banal to the introspective back to the banal. Lots of doubt. Lots of darkness. Lots of sex. 
Sports too. That helps tone everything else down – the nothingness and all that. 
And then I do what I have to do. I eat and walk, teach and talk, email and grade, write and plan, blog and argue, reason and mount the elliptical, try to make some sense of what’s to come. 
And then I have a drink and think and have another and try to ride the round slow arc, going up, my arms almost out, warm and clear, and chase that well, and slump, giving in to my urge to play Texas Hold ‘Em. 
Watch something and something else, sleep and do it all again.
Good Apocalypse
The city is in ruins, not still smoldering but that feeling there, the sky bright, endless, the depth terrifying and clear. 
There is nothing. And it is a good thing. 
Yes, a good thing. It is not that people haven’t been lost. They have. They are distant and gone. There is a gap from that. But not as much as would be expected. 
The screams have gone, not from dying, but the drunkenness, the all-knowingness, the certitude banged up against in the street, dumb-eyed, suddenly stopped, turning. There is none of that. 
The quiet is sure. It is a free place, drifted to, away and alone, the climb to the top, the twist through the shoulders, feet firmly planted, hands tight, watching, clear-headed, almost happy with nothing on TV but Gilligan, too poignant, verging on Camus. 
But the funny thing is I feel good, too good.
And I know I should feel guilty about that.
Cogency & Torpor
Cogency (the quality of being clear)
Torpor (state of having little energy)
Both words were used in conversation with me today with people who speak English as a second language.
Perhaps a network executive will pitch them as the next wave in cop shows. 
Or is that now my intellectual property?
Laurie Anderson on my plane
Laurie Anderson was on my flight to Los Angeles. 
I wanted to say something, but I didn’t know what. She looked so sweet and vulnerable. I mean, she was sitting in coach, just like us. I thought about what I would say, and considered offering her my condolences for Lou Reed’s death. But that was just stupid, an excuse to be a sycophant. So I said nothing. I didn’t even smile. 
Still…I really did want to tell her how much I admire her, her work, her voice, her wit. “I’m a big fan.” Yeah, I would probably say something like that. Our flight was delayed and while we sat waiting for a part, it occurred to me that I could give her my book.
Yes, she might like it. After all, it has a strong female voice and some good cerebral bits on life and loss. But I didn’t have it with me…and it was a stupid idea anyway, another one.
The truth was it was a good thing Laurie Anderson didn’t have to deal with me pitching ideas at her while she was just trying to read, maybe sleep a little before we landed.
And yet…if I told her all of this. What then? Wouldn’t she laugh? Wouldn’t she say, “Oh, okay. Let’s see this book of yours. my bad side. It’s a good title. I like it. I like it a lot.” 
And even since I didn’t do any of this and just watched her walk away at LAX, there is still the chance she will read this blog. I mean, she would only have to search her name and scroll down a few dozens pages or so. And here it is!
And then I know she would smile to herself, look for my contact icon and write something like, “Hello. Let’s talk.”
The Myth of Absinthe
Absinthe has the reputation all bad boys and girls dream of.
Fawned over by the elite and artistic, banned a hundred years ago, potent and delicious. Have you tried!? Have you? It is the stuff of legends, hallucinogenic, hyper-potent and most dangerous, all because a few poets and artists indulged excessively in Paris back in the day.
But how is it any different than other alcohol? Or is it? Don’t they say the same about tequila? Or the mixture of Guinness & cider known as a Snakebite? 
I do admit to being coerced into doing an Aguirre, Wrath of God rap after a Snakebite or two in my ill-gotten days, but I expect that spell could have been induced by many things.
I did try Absinthe recently, and it was fine. But there was nothing remarkable about it. And there were certainly no green fairies.
The Best Place in the World
This just might be the best place in the world. 
People pass by, here and not here, beggars and suits and children and lost sad women and college kids and military personnel, moving like they matter, all at different paces, the wonder of the world beaten down by life but still moving, unseeing, unsure, lost in their own world, but still like they might know where they are going. There are so many that they don’t have to talk. 
Stupid things are said like “Life is life and it’s funny” and nobody is listening. Anything can be bought – orange ski gloves, faux Thai food, booze of all kinds. It is cool, not cold, not warm. It is so loud that it is almost quiet. There is an echo that never stops.
I could stand here for hours. And nobody would care.
Tired on the Train
She opened the book and considered the page. 
She had forgotten where she was, what paragraph, what had happened. She let her hand drift down the worn paper, dragging the bookmark in a long slow slide. She bent the bookmark forward and looked down the glossy edge, an old ticket, from the McCartney concert at Yankees Stadium. 
They had sat at the side of the stage, seeing McCartney’s profile as he moved back and forth. It was amazing how young he acted and all of those great songs. And Crystal had almost looked happy, relaxed in the evening light, the arc of the thousands of people going up gently away into the sky. She didn’t drink that night. Nothing. That was the year she had died.
She turned the ticket over, slid it back into the book, and held her finger, the black nail polish poking out, the end of it. She hung on to that and stared at her shoes and then across the train at her dark reflection in the window, the tunnel moving past, and saw the man staring back, his expression almost angry, chin burrowed in his scarf. Sex. It was always that. 
The train slowed. It was time to get off.