Thursday, August 30, 2012

Part 1: An Amicable Marooning

I want to tell you a story.

It is likely – it is even probable! – that this story that I wish to tell is a story which requires more than a single simple blog post to relate. For this is not a tale that putt-putts forward from Point A to Point B in any traditionally recognized manner of travel.

We cannot begin in a place called “Here”  with a young, soon-to-be hero smoking his pipe and staring at the horizon and dreaming of a world lying beyond his own only to wind up in a place called “Over There”  with the same hero – now slightly older, greatly wiser – having won the girl and the grail and the castle and the steed and a new best friend for comedic relief. No! For this is not that species of story. Not by a long shot.

This is a seed. No, this is a cutting – a wee bit snip of root or stem or vine that will grow and grow until it twists up and around and back down again. This is a story that brings in me and your grandmother and Teddy Roosevelt and the first t.v. Even you – yes you! – make an appearance in this story. Briefly, fleetingly, and we’ve had to smudge your face out because we didn’t get your written permission to show you, true. But you’re in there!

In this story, there is no edge where maps fail and ships fall off into space, captains, rats, and all. This story goes as far as we let it.

But this story starts right here.

And it starts with a moving truck. Here, I’m not speaking of a truck in motion, but rather of a truck whose whole purpose in life is to transport people’s household belongings – their couches and bed springs and dressers and the family photos and pet baby scorpions – and take them from one residence to a new residence. To a new life.

The box of this truck has a pale blue stripe down it and the stripe goes on forever. You see a stripe like that, you cannot help but to think, “How can any one person or one family or one village possess so very many belongings that it would require a truck with a stripe so long in which to carry them?”

You’d think that and you’d be justified in your thinking, but our greatest physicists have studied the truck box at great length and they assure us that no matter how much the movers insist they’ve made the wisest possible use of the inside area of the box, it’s still, at bottom, mostly empty space.

But somebody starts up the truck now. You hear it cough. You hear it roar. You see it drive away now. The moving truck is moving.

And as the moving truck moves away, it reveals something there, still on the curb. Something left behind. Something that had, up until this moment, been blocked from our view.

It is shaped a bit like a person. It is human-like. Humanoid… -ish. This thing left behind up on the curb, it is intended to be perceived as being human, and it does a fair to middling job in this regard. The gangly limbs, the bulbous head, the cartoonishly large eyes – it would be easy enough for you to question whether it really belongs to the species known as homo sapiens, but here’s the thing:

It is crying.

And crying makes even the least human of things look… well, downright human.

It cries. It watches the moving truck moving away.

It is me.

And this is how the story that I want to tell you begins.

[**The phrase  “An Amicable Marooning”comes from the song “Gopher Guts” by Aesop Rock, as will the title of every part of this series.]


64 comments:

  1. It's the first time I have read your blog upon publication in a long, long time. Yet, it is the worst I have seen you milk a story, in an dying attempt at having something to say.

    Now that you would invent and impersonate multiple personalities and online handles in order to post over 60% of the reader comments on your own blogs, if there is a way to do an intervention for a blogger, then one is way overdue on this page.

    So someone moved away from your life, BIG DEAL. Why would we care? Hell, we don't even know who you really are, do we.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I gotta say, on5464, I've been accused of a lot of things before, but NEVER of being British.

      I am sorry that you were dissatisfied with the quality of this blog post - or the quality of this blog page in general. I have routed your helpful comments to our complaints department, and you should be hearing back from them in no more than 72 hours.

      Delete
    2. my god 'on5464'. you really need to get a life of your own.

      maybe you're misery would be better appreciated there.

      cause sure as shit, you're not appreciated here.

      fuck off.

      Delete
    3. On5464, don't you have anything better to do than leave nasty comments on people's blogs? If you don't like the blog, move on to someone else's. No one is forcing you to read these blogs.

      Delete
  2. Fuck that shit, on5464, you don't need to be here if you have something better to do with your precious time. Oh, sorry, do you have nothing better to do?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, Rupert!

      I've always had this strange ability to draw in disgruntled readers. It's sort of odd how FEW there are at "Lesbians in My Soup", actually.

      And when it comes to disgruntled readers, on5464 is way up there! He has followed me from blog to blog over the years, using (in his words) "multiple personalities and online handles" to express his displeasure with my writing.

      Delete
    2. are there multiple personality disorders i am not aware of? could be deep shit or bullshit. are they the same?

      Delete
    3. Haha... Hi, Violet.

      I suspect that the internet is creating new personality disorders that psychiatry has yet to catch up with.

      My blog ought to be the laboratory for the early case studies...

      Delete
  3. I really hope this post doesn't mean what I think it does. Also, love that you chose a reference from an Aesop Rock song.
    As complaints go, on5464 offered the least coherent criticism I've seen since I drunkenly argued with a squirrel.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Did the squirrel win?

      No, wait, that's a silly question. You're an intelligent guy. I know you pulled it off in the end. Squirrels are infamous for their logic errors...

      This post means what you probably think it means. I am expecting future sections of the story will appear in the next few days to explain further...

      Delete
  4. otis rampaging heterosexualityAugust 31, 2012 at 8:34 AM

    OK, OK, so "on5465" has got a problem dealing with "Jervaise Brooke Hamster", a lot of people have got a problem dealing with "Jervaise Brooke Hamster", its because "Jervaise Brooke Hamster" is, quite simply, "a genius", a lot of people are jealous of that fact so they become petty and bitter (like "on5464"). The fact that he is British scum doesn`t make any difference here, he is still THE greatest 'TROLL' ever to disgrace the internet, people like "on5464" must just learn to accept that ! ! !.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. What have I ever done to deserve my blog being blessed with so many passionate commenters?

      Delete
  5. Katy, I don't quite know how to process this - but I'll be reading the rest when it's done.

    Here's a hug, for what it's worth: ((((Katy))))

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Will. I'm going to write my way through the next couple weeks, I think.

      Delete
  6. Katy, i like the 2 pictures you used in this post, they do have an almost Byzantine magnificence to them (with just a hint of Katy Anders as well obviously).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Katy. I find myself strangely uneasy with the words of this post. Maybe that's why you chose to write it as is. I fear that several of the imageries contained foreshadow cruel events, tears.

      As for 5464, I headed over there to his place for a peek to see what makes him and his intellect superior, condescending. Having done so I see what it is that he was actually trying to say.

      Rather than write creative and interesting prose that stimulates the readers' imagination and entertains, 5464 seems to like the hard-hitting literary style that mimmicks yesterday's tired news stories read from an Associated Press paper ticker.

      Please don't drop the other shoe on a relationship.

      Delete
    2. Hey, Mooner!

      I love it when my writing makes people uneasy... I'll be writing more of it, I think, this weekend... I have a lot of extra time on my hands these days!

      Delete
  7. Replies
    1. My life is generally a comedy of errors. Once in a while, it's a tragedy of errors.

      Delete
    2. We shall see: I am not easy to live with, but I'm incredibly manipulative when I need to be. Anything could happen!

      Delete
  8. Replies
    1. Thank you, Rupert... As of this very hour, it has been one week since the moving van pulled away from this house. If I was not going to be ok, it would have already happened...

      Delete
  9. Dang, that was a read, comments and all.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, benni! It was a short piece for me. But I figured I had said all that needed to be said for now, and I'll move on with it this weekend...

      Delete
  10. Katy- did you paint those 2 pics? Love them regardless.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I cannot count the visual arts along my limited talents, unfortunately.

      My C-drive does have the best batch of downloaded pictures in the world, however. I can usually go through the pics and find something appropriate for ANY blog post...

      Delete
    2. liar!
      I saw the cow pic.
      so there

      Delete
    3. That cow looks as though ti could just step right off the piece of paper and right into your living room, doesn't it?

      Katy Anders: Twice the mental problems of other artists. Half the talent.

      Delete
  11. I feel for you, though I was unsure if it was you who were moving or not. Judging from the comment, it wasn't you who moved. I'm here for you if you need to talk... if I can get the darn thing to work. If all else fails, you can PM me on Multiply.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks, Cal. I am responsible for the things that happen to me in my life.

      I just need to pay more attention.

      Mount Eerie: “If I look / Or if I don't look / Clouds are always passing over."

      Delete
    2. Sometimes we are, sometimes we aren't. Sometimes there's something obscuring our vision of the clouds.

      Delete
    3. I had a dream last night that Jay-Z threatened to beat me up. That has to mean something...

      Delete
    4. I had a dream involving you and your ex. Your blogs must be so overwhelming that they embed themselves in my subconscious.

      Delete
    5. Haha... I don't know if that is a good or bad thing, Cal!

      There are probably healthier things to dream about. Whatever happened to good, old-fashioned sex dreams?

      Oh, wait... It wasn't a good, old-fashioned sex dream involving me and my ex, was it?

      Delete
    6. Well, kind of yes and kind of no. It was actually a hard dream to make sense of except maybe if viewed as an attempt to make your ex jealous to get her back for you. It ended before I found out if it worked.

      Delete
    7. I never remember my dreams.

      I am told that I MUST dream, but... nothing. Mine are probably twisted and perverted and I wouldn't even know...

      Delete
    8. I went for a long time rarely dreaming and when I did dream the dreams were never erotic, darn it. I've been dreaming since they changed my Xanax to Valium, though. The dream I had the other night was the first semi-erotic dream I've had in years.

      I've been having dreams up to three at a time and remember them all when I wake up. If I don't concentrate on remembering they seem to vanish from my memory. The dream the other night stuck with me. Maybe it was the abrupt ending.

      Delete
    9. There are certain types of medication that are more conductive to remembering dreams - or even lucid dreaming - than others.

      I tried nicotine patches at one point, and my dreams were crazy. When I tried quitting smoking again a few years later, I was using Wellbutrin (an anti-depressant that is supposed to curb cravings that I was getting off the street), and my dreams got incredibly brutal and dark.

      Delete
    10. Wellbutrin made my desire to smoke worse and caused suicidal thoughts. Suicide? I guess that's one way to stop smoking.

      Delete
    11. Weird.

      It's supposed to STOP suicidal thought, isn't it?

      Delete
  12. Let me know when you're OK. My best wishes are with you, as always. You know I'm your friend.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hey, Bill. I'm okay. Bad things happen all of the time. The biggest for me right now is to make it worse by being an ass.

      Delete
    2. Making it worse by being an ass is usually the best way to keep old lovers from coming back. It works almost as well as Raid does on roaches.

      Delete
    3. I am trying to remember that right now. Moment by moment.

      Keeping voice mails down to a bare minimum is a major accomplishment for me.

      Delete
  13. Awww...I love a good cliff hanger, and HUGS!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The problem with blog cliff hangers is that one of two things have to happen. Let's say readers don't know whether I have actually fallen over a cliff or not...

      Then either:

      a) The very fact that I've posted - plus my later responses to reader comments - reveal that I'm intact enough to think about blogging; or

      b) I leave things ambiguous and disappear after posting for a while, thereby proving I'm a huge jerk willing to toy with folks' emotions to get blog interest up.

      It's a win/win! I'm kidding. There are some plot twists that don't work online.

      Delete
    2. Nope...I agree. Win/win. I just wish there was a way I could do that...all I would end up doing is pissing a lot of people off...

      Delete
    3. Haha... I have to start paying attention to when I'm potentially pissing people off! I am told I am a HUGE jerk.

      Delete
  14. Replies
    1. I make sure all the pork I consume is well-cooked, and I always look BOTH ways before I cross the street.

      Delete
  15. "In this story, there is no edge where maps fail and ships fall off into space, captains, rats, and all. This story goes as far as we let it."

    this blog makes me think of Hunter S Thompson (why all ways with the S) and the fear of change...

    #Hunter_S_Thompson -- "The world is like a ride at an amusement park. It goes up and down and round and round. It has thrills and chills and it's very brightly coloured and it's very loud and it's fun, for a while ..." -- http://pinterest.com/goodstuffsworld/hunter-s-thompson/

    BTW - I have been an internet hobo and creating a huge online foot print. However, I will start posting my stuff here next week.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Goodstuff!

      Blogger is great for... blogging. The Google+ component has improved the social networking thing.

      But there are more blogs out there that get 5 comments per posting than there are blogs that get 100 per or Multiply numbers. Your reach is broader, but you work for it...

      Delete
  16. I absolutely love the detailed artwork you chose for this post. There’s so much to see, so much you don’t want to miss, which is why it’s a perfect accompaniment to your writing.

    I take such great pleasure getting lost in your wonderful writing. Your posts are layer upon layer of interest and intrigue that succeed in fully capturing and captivating the reader. Whether you’re sharing a moment of joy or expressing soul-deep angst, you never fail to color what you have to say with beauty, with heart and with wisdom that belies your years.

    I’m so sorry that this is not a moment of joy for you.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank, you, Susan.

      I spend a LOT of time on my blogs - this one is actually an exception of sorts - and I always have to just hope and pray that the investment shows up in the final outcome.

      I wish I shared your artistic ability so I could tie all my posts together with pictures... But people generally figure out how my page works if they keep coming back.

      Delete
  17. Sounds like you're having a difficult time...I hope this has a happy ending :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am having a hard time.

      I hope it has a happy ending, too!

      Delete
  18. My heart is breaking. This is awful. When it's appropriate, once enough time has passed, please let me know so I can ask you out on a date.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi, Nellie. I've never really dated anyone but Dana. The idea seems weird and alien and I can't get my head around it.

      But I am going to be alright...

      I am going to be alright...

      I am going to be...

      Delete
  19. you will be ok katy! i promise you a million times over.

    life is fucking brutal with the shit it hands out to us, but one thing i CAN say is, EVERYTHING always gets better.

    as long as you keep writing, getting your feelings out either here or with friends who love you, anything ... then the crud gets outta your head and you can begin to heal.

    i'm here for you.

    i adore you xoxo

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you, Andrea!

      I don't know what is going to happen. Things have been so stable for me during my time with Dana.

      Regardless, things are going to get interesting...

      Delete
  20. ok, I am mimicking "memento" here with my reverse reading of this series.

    I had been having (still having) my battle with my life , so I think I can relate to this story of yours. Moving truck? Instead of moving truck - I have a minivan, mine has two kids as well in that. I am sorry Katy, I am so sorry. Hope things turn out ok and good.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks. I'm going to survive.

      Lots of people live through awful things.

      I hate it, but I'll survive.

      Delete

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