I Saw Sinister Monsters Inside of Me

Well, my flight back from my mini-holiday in New Mexico is delayed, and I’m blogging for the first time using my mobile phone. I’ve been dying to put some words down all weekend, even though I told myself this was going to be a relaxing, spa getaway in the Santa Fe mountains. Yet there’s an itch more powrful than ringworm on moist feet that haunts me. Yesterday morning I rummaged through the hotel room to find stationery on which I could take a few notes. The friend I was traveling with looked curious and mildly alarmed. Please, I wanted to tell him. These notes are as thrilling and salacious as a stack of paper napkins. I just needed to write something, anything. Mostly character sketches for Carapace.

And well, here I am now, at the gate at the Albuquerque Sunport (what the hell kind of name is that?), and I am finger tapping, feeling relief come over me again. Words. Delicious words. I can only toss them internally for so long. Eventually they have to escape.

The trip itself? It was relaxing, for sure. I don’t think I’ve had that much dedicated time to reflect and dabble in introspection in a long time. The resort was tranquil, and my friend and I spent much time together without idle chatter. Breathing in the thin mountain air, listening to the buzz of the hummingbirds and relaxing in the Japanese style hot spring/whirlpool, I dug deep inside myself. When I reflect this way, I find the monsters first: ugly, misshapen parts of my psyche that lurk with gaping jaws and gnarled hands like a Grand Guignol show. My findings, once I confronted them? I reconfirmed whay i already know: I have the potential to be self-righteous, snobbish, demanding, glib, icy as a glacier and menacingly silent as stone. Hardly someone you’d want to spend time with, much less get to know better..

Of course, the mind and personality of a person does not simply contain tumors and cancerous mutants. There’s good in there too. And I thought a lot about the good, how it is really helping me focus on all my current goals, and how, if I work at it, I can touch and connect with other people. Yeah, there’s some pretty things inside of me, as well.

And so I went on and on this way for three days. And I reached some conclusions.

I’m resigned to the following: Keep working steadily on my current career and academic goals; finish Carapace this summer; put aside nihilistic thoughts about how I am perceived by people (am far too old to care at this point if anyone thinks I’m a frigid a–hole); focus on giving lots of care and love to those who really engage with me on artistic, professional and personal levels; and as always, Live.

So there we have it.

Incidentally, “Hybridae” is going out this week to the magazine editor. Yippers. And Market Days is coming up this weekend. My ass is going to have to get up early Saturday so I can write before meeting up with friends. I hope my liver survives the two-day party.

Oh great. They just announced a longer delay. Guess I might post again on this here pamphlet later today. At least I have an Iain Pears novel, a DS, RSS reader and snacks to get me through. Oh yeah, Twitter too.

Presing on.