Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay
Linus the Penguin is here to wish me a happy 57th birthday. Thank you, Linus! Come on in and join the bitch-fest!
So, I was born 57 years ago in the middle of a literal raging blizzard in Denver, Colorado. The car slid off the road and my father, who was very sick with a respiratory infection, had to push it back onto the road while my mother, who was in labor, steered. That's how the fuck I started my life, and it's been a premonition of what was to come. I ain't ever been nothin' but trouble.
Spirit of the Universe, could you please help me make some good trouble before it's time for me to leave this cluster fuck? I believe I can still wring a few years out of this crappy old carcass, but one never knows. Amen.
All right, it's time now for a few party games. Let's answer some questions from 52 Weeks of Writing! If you'd like to purchase a copy of this workbook for yourself (you should) there will be a link at the end of this torrent of profanity and kvetching.
Our first question is:
Where do you want to be ten years from now? How will you celebrate?
I want to be alive and not any more disabled than I am now. I will celebrate with a Costco pizza and cake. You know, like I always do.
Yeah, but Ornery, what about the BIG WINS? Don't you want to throw a BIG PARTY for all your supporters?
All what supporters, Annoying Disembodied Voice? I doubt there will be any BIG WINS. I don't believe in setting myself up for disappointment. I imagine there will be me and my son, and if my son isn't here, there will be no reason for me to be here. That's the fucking reality. Now, piss off and let me enjoy my Costco pizza and cake. You're fucking pissing me off right now.
I'm already sad because my grandcat Giorgio probably won't be here in ten years. He's nineteen now. My mother could still be here in ten years, but she also might not. She's going to be 83 years old this year.
Maybe my brother will be here to join us for Costco pizza and cake. I hold out a little hope that he will decide to move up here to the Lone Prairie. He doesn't really like living in Arizona, but it's what he's used to.
If the above rant seems fatalistic, it probably is. I gave up on the whole big pie in the sky dream thing years ago because it always left me in worse shape than it found me. I don't believe in lying to myself.
Anyway, since the year will be 2032, I expect to have a flying car and a laser.
Where do you want to be in five years? How will you celebrate?
I want to have the miracle happen where I'm raking in the bucks like the female Stephen King that the world damn well ought to see me as so I can tell disability to kiss my fat ass and stop preventing me from trying to build up some fucking savings.
Since I refuse to be an unrealistic fuckface, I don't expect this to be the case, so see the above scenario except that I'll be 62 instead of 67. Shorter of breath and one day closer to death, but probably not quite as close. I'll celebrate the same way that I always celebrate. Costco pizza and cake.
Hell, even if I hit the Big Time, I'll celebrate the same way. My partying days are long behind me. I get tired too easy to enjoy that shit.
Where do you want to be in three years? How will you celebrate?
I'll be 60 and I'll probably be having an existential crisis. I hope that David Bowie will visit me in my dreams like he did the last time I was having a serious existential crisis. He had some excellent thoughts and was very nice.
You're welcome to think that it wasn't really David Bowie but a manifestation of my subconscious. However, if you try to insist that I need to think that, I will tell you to fuck off into a vat of liquefied pig shit. There are some things in this world that we just can't explain. My subconscious is a fucking asshole. It would never be that nice to me.
Hopefully, a few more fuckers will know about my writing and maybe I'll have my shit a little more together than I do right now, but I won't hold my breath.
Celebration tactic: Costco pizza and cake.
Where do you hope to be in two years? How will you celebrate?
Hopefully, a little better off than I am right now. Again, I won't hold my breath. The manner of celebration will be Costco pizza and cake. I'm nothing if not consistent. Maybe I will have figured out a way to murder this annoying grammar checker. It's a useful tool but sometimes it's a right fucking prat.
Where do you hope to be in 52 weeks? How will you celebrate?
I hope to be partway through this workbook. I hope to have Ed's Red Wheelbarrow (my family-friendly story about a misunderstood vampire) published and bringing in a few royalties for me and my illustrator, Kami Diox.
You can find Kami on Instagram (@kamidiox) and on Deviant Art.
She is best known for her Chibi fan art, but she also takes commissions and can bring your OCs to life as she's doing for me with Ed's story.
So, wouldn't it be nice if I could be making my artist friend's life easier as well as my own?
Fuck yeah, it would.
Which is why you fuckers want to remember the title "Ed's Red Wheelbarrow" and be ready to snap that fucker up when it is (hopefully) released around Halloween this year or next year.
I'd love to celebrate the triumph with Kami, but she lives in Mexico City. With my health issues, traveling is difficult for me. But maybe if Ed is very, very good to me, I'll be able to roll out first class.
That is the closest you'll see me get to rolling in a big, impossible dream like a pig in slop. I don't do that shit very often. It's kind of like snorting cocaine. It leads to unrealistic expectations and horrific letdowns. Magical thinking has fucked my life more than it has helped it for sure. I don't let myself indulge in it very much. I only allow for controlled bursts. Kind of like how these days Nikki Sixx only lets Sikki Nixx out onstage. If Sikki is allowed free reign, he fucks things up.
Too much of either magical thinking or Sikki Nixx is more destructive than the Tsar Bomba. You can take my word on the magical thinking part. For further thoughts on Sikki Nixx, you can consult Nikki Sixx via The Heroin Diaries.
If I ever meet Nikki Sixx, he can join me for Costco pizza and cake.
In nine months? How will you celebrate?
It's possible that Ed's Red Wheelbarrow will be released in 9 months. I will celebrate with Costco pizza and...
Pie!
Costco makes giant pumpkin pies. We slice it up and freeze it for a tasty treat throughout the winter months.
In six months? How are you going to celebrate?
In six months it will be August and I will be sweating my tits off. I won't yet be able to celebrate turning the fan off. At least this house has better ventilation than the horrible mobile home where I lived for 20 years.
I feel like I wasted a lot of my life being tossed about on the waves of anxiety, trying to live up to other people's expectations, not realizing that I had ADHD and was dealing with PTSD from things that had happened to me years ago. I have to forgive myself for the ways in which I fucked up, but I wasn't the only one that got hurt. That reality still hurts.
I'm wiser now and I will hurt forever.
If reading my experiences helps someone else avoid making the mistakes I did, I will feel somewhat vindicated.
Not validated.
Never validated.
Chasing validation is destructive.
I will celebrate whatever win I get with Costco pizza and an ice cream sundae.
In three months? How are you going to celebrate?
In three months it will be my son's 32nd birthday. Yes, I am old. I am also fat. I am also not conventionally attractive. None of these qualities are reasons to treat me or anyone else like shit. I celebrate the fact that I now stand up for myself and others in telling bullies to piss the fuck off. Fuck you if you think it's fun to make other people feel bad about themselves. Fuck you if you're that kind of shitty person. Seriously, have a look at yourself.
The first round of Sixfold begins on May 1. I have written about Sixfold here and invite you to take a look.
Sixfold is a writing competition and writer's workshop in one. I hope you will consider joining me there.
My son and I will celebrate his birthday with Costco pizza and either a sundae or pie, his choice. He prefers pie to cake.
I actually cheated and wrote this post 8 days before publication. I'm slick like that.
Spirit of the Universe, help me see the good and celebrate the blessings. I love you. Sometimes anyway.
Ornery Owl is Old and Gives No Fucks
Image by Oberholster Venita from Pixabay
Resource Books:
52 Weeks of Writing
Self-Help Sucks
The Icky, Sticky, Nit-Picky Legalese If You Please (Or Don't Please)
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Happy birthday.
ReplyDeleteI hope you have something to celebrate on ALL of those dates.
Thank you. I suppose that I should be grateful that my stupid car chose to die in front of my house rather than 125 miles away in my mother's neck of the woods. I feel like it really is not an auspicious omen for my stupid birthday!
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