[embedyt] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8RiBmZvU-dY[/embedyt]Run DMC at the Passaic, New Jersey Capital Theatre: because it\’s Monday and you might be thinking I didn\’t write for a couple days. You\’re almost right.I pushed out a few words early Saturday morning before taking off to work at a friend\’s photo booth. If you watched the news on west coast going\’s on back in April, you might have heard about a school shooting in San Bernardino at the Northpark Elementary School. That\’s just down the way a piece from my house, about 2, 2.5 miles or so? They had a fall festival with pony rides, music, face painting, food trucks, and my friend\’s photo booth among other things to bring a bit of cheer after such a horrific year. It was nice to see the happy kids and parents, knowing what they\’d gone through just a few months back.Madam Muse was silent yesterday.I think she knows I\’m not about too much pressure, that I need time to … live … beyond the words.It was raining in the morning so it seemed like a great day to cook breakfast, eat too much, and go back to bed. However, the coffee and conversation (and the omelet and toast!) was good so up I stayed. I went to service in the afternoon and decided the rest of the day was better spent in the family room, watching more of American Horror Story Season 3 (I am watching the current Season 7 and had only watched I think it was Season 4 or 5 when it was on each week — I once had gone back to check out the first season, didn\’t like it, and then stopped but had been thinking of watching the ones with Lady Gaga. I started at Season 2 and am working my way through now) and RahXephon (don\’t know why that anime fascinates me so … the story is VERY weird but the artwork and the music … ah, wonderful). I tried watching last night\’s episode of Star Trek Discovery but fell asleep — who says there\’s actually an extra hour when the time changes in fall? — so that will be on tap for today sometime.I got a ping on my Instagram account from someone I don\’t know. The app sent me a note that whoever it was wanted to send me a message. I deleted it because I get wary of people who can\’t just send a friend request so I can see what they are on about.
Too old to play games –at least those not of my choosing.Too calloused for tricks –too banged up from soul-bruising.
That little ditty popped into my head when I saw the Instagram note. My circle is small and I don\’t easily let people in anymore. I mean, social media is what it is — we are connected to people we\’ve known for years, to people we\’ve met by happenstance (like in the blogging or writing world — you know I adore you, my writer friends!), to people who are friends of \’friends\’ who think we\’ve said something quite snazzy, and to people we\’ve never met. An unpleasant internet experience early last year, where I stepped out into the \’web with less social armor on than usual, taught me a lesson: not everyone out there who says a kind word is kind. Not everyone out there who acts like they want to get to know you — the real you — is true. After that, I started putting on more armor and closed the ranks round my small sanctuary even tighter.So there you have it.Now don\’t get all finger-shaking at me — the television show and Instagram rabbit trail was not to deflect the spotlight from the fact that I didn\’t write yesterday. I know you are better at following my ramblings than that.I don\’t expect to \’win\’ NaNo simply because I refuse to be pressured to write that many words every day. Now if Madam Muse gets on a good one and won\’t leave me alone until my fingers are cracked stubs and my quill is work down to the last feather, that\’s something different. It\’s only the sixth day and she\’s been rather quiet thus far.She hasn\’t said a peep yet this morning, but I hope to at least add a sentence or two to the story that has been dripping like sludge from the tip of my pencil the last few days. Its roots are deep in a long ago reality and those are sometimes the most difficult to put on paper. But in the process of healing those sacred spaces, it\’s necessary to get the hard bits out. Some choose therapy, I choose writing. So sue me.This work will be done when it\’s done and not a moment (or word) too soon. And that\’s the way it is.