Like the title says, I’m going on Hiatus.

Things have been a little hectic for me recently, and I need some time to reassess the things I’m doing, and where I want to be.

I’ve changed my mind about a lot of things, and I can’t devote my full attention to those while I’m still getting pulled in a bunch of different directions.

Elizabeth and I are going on vacation today. We’ll be gone for a week. I’m going to take my time up there to think things over. When I get back, I may take more time as well.

Even if you’ve never left a comment on this site, I want to thank everyone for reading. It means a lot to me. Hopefully, I’ll be back soon.

It’s interesting to see the rumor mill churn. You hear about games like Telephone. The original message is screwed to the point of hilarity.

“Steven has a big nose,” becomes, “Brad has a big ass.”

A rumor being spun, however, is something else entirely. You get to watch it – like I did today – morph into the exclusion of an individual.

When you see that, it’s kind of sad.

That’s the trick about human minds. We all remember shit wrong. Even as we say it, we know we’ve got it wrong, but we say it anyway. “So and so had to leave a house with bed bugs,” becomes, “So and so has bed bugs.”

Then it becomes, “Stay the fuck away from so and so.”

We’re horrible and keeping things straight, and we know it too. The possibilities this raises in fiction are enormous.

Here’s another example.

Someone I used to work with blew their brains out over the weekend. Left behind three kids. Was on steroids, and steroids = crazy. Business was failing. Was alone. Was divorced. Was cheating. Was being cheated on. A million little rumors sprung up out of the fact that one poor guy killed himself.

No one knows anything. Everyone participates.

We all say we don’t want to be gossipers. Even if we don’t play along, we still draw our own conclusions. It’s the internal storyteller. It puts together the pieces of what we recall from earlier situations, of what we’ve read and watched, and what our biases are.

We may not voice these, but they still color our perceptions.

Everyone participates.

When I didn’t get the job I wanted, I didn’t feel a sting. Or a punch to the stomach. Nothing snapped inside of me.

I just felt hopeless. That, I think, sums up what it feels like to not get something you want. Though we are marvelously good at self-delusion, we all know chances are strong that we won’t get what we want. We’ve seen the news, read the Internet, been to the forums.

We attach hope to it. That’s the kicker. It’s probably similar to what people feel when they buy lottery tickets. Now when they’re addicted. Before. When it’s new and fresh. They think to themselves, “This time… maybe,” and soon the thought gives way to habit.

So long as you don’t hear back, hope still exists. You can even let yourself believe the longer the wait, the better your chance. If only because every day prior, you didn’t hear the word, “No.”

“No” comes though, and something drops out of you. It’s the hope; the pretty poster you put over the mold spot on the wall. It falls away and you’re left to face your insecurities and the fear of “Oh God, what now?” wells up inside you.

I took a walk.

You have to stay calm. Can’t lost composure.

Cool your jets, bro.

You do calm down, sort of. You walk back inside. You get back to the task at hand.

Something’s different now. It’s not a hole. Too many people say it’s a hole.

It’s more like a ball inside your stomach and chest.

That’s what it feels like when you don’t get the job. Quiet terror and shaking hopelessness.

Today, when the old man who smelled like an open grave walked up to me, and started to complain about interest rates and how “You have to use a computer to order bonds, now! A computer! What am I supposed to do if I don’t have one? Go to the library?” a series of words popped into my head and formed the clearest thought I’ve had in a long time.

That’s not to say the man alone brought on the thought. No, today was a day full of pretty bad moments.

Pretty Bad Moment 1: Training a new employee on how to use email, only to discover an email informing you that you’ve been passed over for a promotion and relocation. Then, turning to the new employee and saying, “If you’ll excuse me, I’ve got to go take a hammer to my face.”

Pretty Bad Moment 2: Getting a call from Best Buy’s Geek Squad, who inform you that your computer is so damn infected with the FBI virus, that even though you paid them 300 bucks, they’re going to have to reset your computer to factory settings. Which, of course, means all of your programs are getting deleted.

Pretty Bad Moment 3: Returning home to find the rain has caused your parking lot to flood. Again.

I think everyone has – throughout their lives – a series of HSIN moments. By HSIN, I mean “Holy shit, I need…”

In high school it was, “Holy shit, I need to get laid.”

In college it was, “Holy shit, I need to get wasted. All. The. Time.”

End of College to Post-College it was, “Holy shit, I need a job.”

Now, as a 25 year old man, it’s “Holy shit, I need a new job.”

50 weeks ago (52 if you count my bout of pneumonia in August. I’m still confused as to how people get pneumonia in August, by the way), I started this blog with the goal of writing 100 stories in 100 weeks. So far, I’ve done pretty well. Yes, some of the stories are terrible. Yes, some are just chapters from my novel. Yes, most are in need of a heavy dose of editing.

But the real goal was to write more. I wanted to write more, and I have. I’ve written 50 short stories. That’s a lot. I’m going to keep writing these stories, but being halfway through my project has made me wonder something. What happens when this is all done? Will I neglect to buy the domain name, and just let everything disappear? Will I never update the site again? Will I try to do something else in 100 weeks?

I’m going to finish my 100 stories. But this blog isn’t going to be just for the stories anymore. It won’t be just for writing advice or a platform for me to complain about my day or problems.

At the top of the site, under the title, were the words, “The Creative Process Journalized.” I’ve still got no idea what that means. I’m changing it to, “Life and the Stories We Tell.” Corny and pretty bad, but it’s the best I’ve gotten so far.

Christ, and I want to be a writer.

This site, along with everything else in my life, is going to get a new direction. A new goal.

Fortunately I have two weeks of vacation coming, which I assume will be plenty of time to figure this stuff out. Or at least to get the ball rolling.

Someone once said, “Writing is simple. You open a vein and bleed.” That’s what I intend to do. Bleed all over the fucking place until I get what I want. Because I want a better everything. We all do. So I’m going to get it.

Welcome back to the new site.

So, my domain name for this site expired this morning, so I had to renew it, reset the hosting servers, and complete my story. It’s been quite the two hours. Anyway, here’s this week’s tale.

*

Jamal stood before the black candles, his hands upraised, and chanted, “All Powerful Lord Satan, I ask thee for your malevolent assistance. Grant me revenge upon those who have wronged me.” He lifted the athame off the table, and drove it through the center of the picture he’d taken with him. Then, the picture of his enemy still on it, he took the dagger and held it over the candles. The edges caught and Jamal transferred it to the burning bowl, which he had stolen from the dining hall earlier that week.

His roommate, Conor, pocked his head in. “You almost done?”

He pulled back the black hood and turned around. “No. I told you, I’d come get you when I was done.”

Conor frowned. “Yeah, but Steph is coming over soon to watch Mad Men, and I’d rather you not be summoning Demons in our room.”

“I’m not summoning Demons-“ Jamal started, but Conor waved his words off and shut the door. “Jackass,” he mumbled, and turned back to his ritual.

He waited. All around him he felt the smoke and magic swirl. He spared a thought to congratulate himself on disabling the fire alarm. Most of the energies he felt in the room were likely just placebos, but Jamal believed he had learned the difference between his own imagination and the real thing.

Still, the instructions for this particular ritual – which he’d found on the Internet – had promised some sort of sign.

The candles flickered. Not that there was anything special about candles flickering, but Jamal picked up on it as said sign. Then a light shone through the window. Jamal initially thought it headlights from the parking lot outside, but it only grew in intensity. Then the room started to vibrate.

Jamal stood, terrified. Perhaps it was the realization that his ritual had worked in combination with the realization that he didn’t know what the fuck he was doing, but Jamal bolted across the floor to the door.

Only to find it locked and that he couldn’t move. He felt himself lift off the ground and float towards the window, and in the moment before he blacked out, he thought he was going to die.

He woke on a table in dark room and thought himself in Hell. His mouth didn’t work, so he couldn’t scream. Then, little figures entered. From where, Jamal couldn’t tell. There were twelve in total; little gray men with smooth skin and almond black eyes. They spoke in a strange language of clicks and motioned to things with too long limbs.

Jamal heard a mechanical whirring noise, and saw a drill appear from above.

And that’s how Jamal got abducted by aliens after participating in a Satanic ritual.

There are times when I feel that my life would make a good sitcom. Perhaps it’s the unpleasant situations I find myself in. These situations, while horrible for me, I’m sure are hilarious to others. I can’t blame  them. I laugh at the misfortune of others all the time.

I’m writing this on my girlfriend’s computer. Mine is with the Geek Squad getting diagnosed. Yesterday, after sitting in traffic for an hour and thinking for the millionth time about how much I hate my commute, I came home to discover my entire computer had been locked down with a virus pretending to be the FBI. This virus accused me of illegal activity and warned that if I didn’t want to be arrested in the next 48 hours, I’d better send them $400.

This is my own fault. I didn’t have adequate virus protection. And although the Geek Squad is charging me $300, I wasn’t worried so much about my inability to use my computer as I was for my stories. They’re all saved on my hard drive, and I can’t remember the last time I backed that thing up.

Which was a mistake, of course. This whole ordeal drove home the importance of computer safety.

Yesterday this seemed like a huge setback. How the hell am I going to operate without my computer for 7-12 days? To be honest though, not much has changed. I can use my girlfriend’s computer to update my blog and post my stories. I write a lot of my stuff long hand, and I still read books I get from the library.

The only thing this has prevented me from is playing Skyrim, and I was getting a bit tired of that game anyway.

I guess my point is this: when something shitty happens, you need to take a moment and see if it’s really as bad as you’re making it out to be. Most of the time, the things we percieve to be huge inconviences are really just minor problems we can sort out in a few minutes.

I’m going to Washington for the long weekend, so I decided to put up this week’s story early. Enjoy.

***

The drug hit him like an express train of ice water. Then it stopped, slowed and caressed him as if he sunk in a vat of honey.

As he tripped and the drug’s hallucinations swirled around his vision, a part of him flashed at him like a lighthouse. It was something deep, not part of the brain. There were a million parts of the brain and all of them were influenced by the drug. No, this was a part of his mind. Some sober, straight, and ready for action part of himself he’d spent hours cultivating. It lounged in the recesses, behind the phobias and the lusts and the thoughts. It spoke to him now. Remember it said. Remember what you’re doing and do it. And he did.

So while the tabletop turned into an ocean and the utensils became battleships; while the kitchen cabinets became smiling handguns who laughed and swirled and sang at him; while the faces of the folks around him turned into pinkish-pale masks – he stuck his hand out, picked up an aircraft carrier he knew to be a knife, and slashed the throat of the man sitting next to him.

Pandemonium wasn’t the right word. He didn’t really remember what the reactions were, because right after the deed, he’d stood up and left.

Now he jogged through what looked like Space Mountain, towards nothing. Someone started jogging alongside him. He looked and saw his ex-girlfriend, in a sports bra and pigtails. She looked younger than he remembered. “Where’re you going?”

“Out west,” he said.

“You hate the west. All the flies got up the horses’ noses and they would buck.”

He shrugged and kept on. Vague streaks he thought were rollercoasters swept around him. He wanted to say he had to do the thing he’d done, but it came out as a jumble of weird noises.

“I know,” she said, looking sad. “I just wished you’d let it go. Like your mother told you.”

“How could I?”

“How does one let anything go? Move on or forget.”

“Hardly.”

He wanted to touch her; to reach out and grab her and shake her until she became alive again. But whenever he did she never seemed to be there. Always she looked the same distance away, always within reach, but never actually so. “This is some crazy shit,” he mumbled.

“Yeah,” she replied, jogging next to him still. “Yeah, it is.”

There’s a certain humor that comes with SF, no matter how much we’d like to deny it. Murder… IN SPACE. Religion… IN SPACE. Nazis… IN SPACE. Like heavy metal music, the genre of SF/F can be inspiring and can ask a lot of questions about what it means to be a human, but there’s also a sense of hilarity to it.

Not so in Kindred. This book is called Science Fiction, but it isn’t filed under SF and even the author said she thought it more of a “grim fantasy.” The only thing that makes this SF is the time traveling, and the time traveling isn’t ever explained.

Kindred is a simple story, at least in concept. A black woman living in modern day Los Angeles (by modern, I mean 1976) with her white husband, is sent back in time – against her own will – to antebellum south, at a plantation where some of her ancestors are located.

In terms of plot and story structure, this novel obeys all the rules. There’s a gradual increase of tension, character arcs, and some clear plot points.

But Kindred is so much more than that. Here’s a disclaimer. I’m a young white man. I came from a moderately wealthy family, went to a good school, and have a decent job. I’m of Irish descent. The closest thing I experience to prejudice is an episode of Family Guy, and that doesn’t count.

We read books in school, written by African Americans, so we can understand just how terrible slavery was. We learn how that stain of racism has carried over into today’s society, and how awful that is. Problem is, I’ll never truly understand it. Sure, I know it was horrible and a true crime. But I’ll never get how it feels to be another person’s property, or how it feels to be degraded in such a way, and to have no rights whatsoever.

Kindred, I think, does a great job of portraying this feeling. Though I can’t fully understand slavery, by sending a modern black woman back in time, we can at least get some sort of perspective thanks to the time difference.

We see just how someone goes from having everything to nothing, and how she deals with the shame and anger.

Not once do we see the MC wonder at how quickly she let herself become a slave. Yes, she wants to be free, but she also needs to survive. That’s a key theme in this book: freedom vs. survival. Yes, you could run away. You could take your whole family and just walk right off the plantation. But you’d probably be caught.

And then you’d be beaten to within an inch of your life. Then you’d be sold to separate plantations, and you’d never see your family again. So what’s more important? Your skin or your pride? Your family or your freedom?

There’s no easy answer. There never will be.

This novel is important, but it’s not fun. That’s not a con. A novel about slavery shouldn’t be entertaining. It is well-written and well-told. I recommend this book to everyone.

SF books suffer from dating more so than any other genre. Probably because the trajectory of technology is so hard to predict, that when a book comes along and differs from what we percieve to be the future or what has become the future, our immersion is broken.

There’s something to be said for a book that still resonates, despite its unfulfilled prophecies.

Neuromancer is one such book. This book was a joy to read, and though I can see why people say it hasn’t aged well, I disagree.

Dark technology permeates everything in this book. The world of the Sprawl is bleak and merciless. The multitudes are lost in a haze of cyberspace, drugs, and perversion. I certainly wouldn’t call it a happy place, but I would call it alive.

Gibson accomplishes this through intricate detail and a break-neck writing pace. Warning Number One: You’ll have to pay attention. This isn’t some frilly, eye-glazed, skim at your discretion story. If you want to understand what’s going on, you’re going to need to pay attention (and even then, it can be a bit tough).

The writing is swift and can cut deep, like Molly’s razorblades. If you can appreciate that you’ll be rewarded with a painting of a world both bleak and vibrant.

Warning Number Two: If you’re in the mood for do-gooders, look elsewhere. The people in Neuromancer are not good people. They’re theives, addicts, murderers, sociopaths, and scizophrenics. They’re not in the mood to learn anything and they won’t become better people by the end. You will get to peel back their scabs and see their humanity though. You see their fears and hatreds and perversions and sicknesses played out before them, and you’ll watch them break and soldier on anyway.

SF owes a lot to Neuromancer. The term cyberspace comes from this book, and you can’t help but draw parallels to the Internet as it exists today. Its depiction of artificial intelligence is mesmerizing, and though it seems a bit dated now, the interactions with Wintermute are some of the highlights of this book.

I would recommend this book to anyone who wants to read a thriller dripping with SF. You’re going to need to make a commitment to it, however. Like I said, don’t expect to just sit down and power through this. My copy clocked in at just under 300 pages, but you’ve got to work at those pages.

An excellent book, worthy of the awards it won and the praise it still gets.

Sorry this is so late, I just drove back from Rochester and I’m fried. Enjoy.

The thing I remember most about Mrs. Cahill was the set of rings under her eyes. I think I thought of them as tree rings; they told me her age – her real age, not the one she pretended – the way nothing else did. Especially not the make-up that ran with the tears she told me was ocean water.

On the night I walked her home she wore a tight black top and jeans. Her arms were bare and under the light from the boardwalk I could see the blemishes on her tanned skin. I didn’t like them. Although I knew it was mean, I couldn’t help but think Mrs. Cahill looked like she was rotting. Her hair was bleached so blond it looked ghost white.

This was all before Sandy. Before the boardwalk got taken away and the roller coaster got dismantled. This was back when you could buy a beach house and host parties where other people who had beach houses came. To them I’m sure it was magical. I don’t think I cared much. I had two game consoles in my room – a Playstation 2 and a GameCube – and my summer nights were spent playing Metal Gear and Resident Evil 4.

My parents threw parties where everyone got drunk, complained about Iraq, and pretended they were younger than they were. I mean, I’m not even thirty yet and I can’t even drink as much as I did in college. I can’t imagine the hell these people put themselves through to keep up the masquerade.

The shore was a paradise for them, though. They may have faked their happiness, but at least they faked it together.

I spent my nights blessedly apart from what occurred downstairs. Unless someone went a little too far. It was ritualistic the way they cut someone away. First the room would turn their backs. I saw this happen once. It wasn’t Mrs. Cahill, but a guy named Bill or Brad or something. He started shouting something about the banks, and when his friends tried to quiet down, he just got more agitated. Like the Wave at a ballgame, the people turned around until no one saw him.

Then they would send for someone to take him home. No one would call a cab. Usually, they called me. My parents would insist I walk so and so home. “They just need a leg to stand on,” they’d say. “It won’t take a minute.” They always acted as if they were bad parents for asking. I never thought so. I’m sure others would disagree.

After they had left, they would begin to talk about the person. Never in a good way. Even their significant other would join in. That always made me mad. You shouldn’t talk shit about the person you’re married to. Or rather, you should, but only to their face. That’s how relationships work. It’s okay to badmouth them to their face, but not to people you’re pretending are your friends. I think they did it for the attention.

Some of those people really got off on giving a short, pitiful shrug and saying, “Sometimes I just don’t know what I’m going to do with him/her.” People would flock in and say, “Well, you know…” and then that would be that.

On the night Mrs. Cahill had to be walked home – by me – her husband cheated on her. I didn’t find out until later. Years later.

Anyway, my parents pulled me from my games and told me to get dressed. “You know where Mrs. Cahill lives?” They asked. I did. “Do you know the way there across the beach and boardwalk?” I did. “Good, then you need to take her there. It won’t take a minute.”

I pulled on some jeans and a beat-up sweatshirt I’d gotten at Mesa Verde and walked downstairs. Mrs. Cahill – her first name was Madeline, Maddy for short – sobbed on our porch. Everyone had their backs turned, and Mr. Cahill was chatting up a slightly younger woman and saying, “Sometimes I just don’t know what I’m going to do with her.”

Mrs. Cahill was looking at the near black waves when I came outside. “Mrs. Cahill,” I said. “I’m supposed to take you home.”

“You’ll be drafted you know,” she mumbled. “You’re too young now, but someday you won’t. You’ll be drafted.”

“Okay,” I said.

“No, it’s not.”

“Okay.”

I took her hand and led her down the steps and onto the sand.

One thing these walks helped me develop was tough skin. There are some bad people on the beach. Not a lot, but they’re there. They sit by bonfires and spit curses at whoever passes for whatever reason. I always thought they were scared, like a younger version of the people who came to my parents’ beach house. Not that that made me like them any better.

We passed one group not three minutes into our walk. I got called a faggot, and someone asked Mrs. Cahill for a blowjob. I had to drag her away as she yelled back at them. I guess those walks let me get used to that kind of thing, so later in life when I heard the similar thoughtless insults, I brushed them off.

Some thought I was scared. I just didn’t care.

We walked past the hecklers and eventually their voices faded away. For a bit we stayed silent under water-reaching lights of the boardwalk. Mrs. Cahill sniffled. I’d let her hand fall, and had mine shoved in my pockets. I said these walks had helped me develop tough skin, but that didn’t mean I had it at the moment. Words have always gotten to me. Far more than actions ever have. Someone insulting me to my face has always been more painful than someone actually betraying me. I guess I sort of expect the latter to happen, while the former is like a bad dream coming true.

“Your parents don’t like me,” Mrs. Cahill said after a time. “They don’t talk to me like they talk to the others.”

“That’s not true,” I said. “They wouldn’t invite you if they didn’t like you.”

She laughed. “You only invite people you don’t like to these things. You stop having friends at a certain age. You’ll see.”

“Okay.”

“I used to have a lot of friends.” I think that may have been the most terrible thing I’d ever heard. “I don’t know where they went.”

“Maybe they’re at home,” I said, hoping the words would spur her to hurry up. They didn’t.

“I used to have control, you know? Something would happen and I’d know what to do. Everything was action, now it’s just all reaction.” She looked at me with eyes begging me to understand. I just nodded.

She kissed me then. She put her hands on my face, came in close and kissed me full on the mouth. She tasted, I later found out, like vodka. I’d like to say I did or didn’t kiss her back, but I can’t remember. I do remember the look of shame on her face, and fleeting jeers from a distance away. Those last I think I imagined. I don’t remember what I said either, if anything.

We were walking again, then.

“You know how people tell you that one day you’ll blink and you’ll be old?” She asked.

I nodded.

“That’s bullshit,” she said. “I remember every bit of it. Nothing goes away.”

“Okay.”

While we had walked, we’d passed six houses with their lights off. They were magnificent things, and gave off a certain wealthy laid-backness. I used to think I wanted one for myself. Every time Mrs. Cahill looked at one, she bit her lip and stared at her feet. I don’t know why.

Eventually we got to her porch. That night, I was surprised by how simple her place looked. Just a regular house. The kind you pass every day and don’t notice.

“Are you alright by yourself?” I asked.

She looked down at me, and though she didn’t seem happy, she at least seemed resigned and clear-eyed. “I suppose I am, now.” Mrs. Cahill put a hand on my head. “Thanks.” Then she patted my head.

“Goodnight, Mrs. Cahill.” I left her then, and walked back down the sand towards my home, next to the boardwalk.