Excuses, Insanity and Love

My guilt-ridden, tortured conscience no longer able to bear the burden, it’s time for apologies to my many adoring fans, but mostly to Charlotte, Cookie (I’ll discuss her later)...and myself...for my literary lapses of late. This, then, must serve as an arena for amends, my confessional and a means by which to confront in black and white the preponderance of ludicrous excuses I make to not live up to my life’s assignment.

Distractions abounded over the past few weeks, their forms myriad. Aside from my ever-prestent multitude of manias, there have been physical illness and technical obstacles consisting of computer viruses, power outages and electrical glitches. Then, finally and mostly, as yawn or nausea inducing as it may be to anyone other than the two key players, there is the radical storm that struck the desert my love life has dwelled in for the past couple of years. As Woody Allen’s character, Alvy, expressed after making love to Annie Hall in the eponymous movie, "As Balzac said, 'There goes another novel'."

All except the last-mentioned issue being water under the clichéd bridge, I’ll just have to flog myself daily to write and keep Charlotte, Cookie, and all others mentioned, satisfied.  The object of my new love will simply have to understand, being a writer herself.

The Price Paid

Charlotte is progressing well. Why?  Because I’m investing cell and soul, hence my jumbled, perverted state. Drained yet energized in adrenal overdrive, I’m crazed by myriad thoughts, synapses firing at will, maniacally, beyond my control. I’m pathetic. I’m withdrawing from this reality--even that an easily arguable mere concept, Charlotte’s realm devouring that with every word written. Beyond the isolation required while writing, the confinement creeps into every other aspect of life, the dwindling contact with the reality remaining is convoluted and colored by Charlotte’s demanding, insistent world.

All is cause and effect. There’s a price to pay for everything. It’s choice. I choose the unbalance of commitment to the extreme, faithful that it is affordable and well worth what’s won.  Seeking safety, sanity and serenity by standing in the middle of the road is merely the ideal spot to meet one’s death.

More when...