I guess I should explain…

Between "existential capitalism" and writing about shit, I suppose there have been a few changes around here.

There have been a few changes inside as well.

Let me explain.

I've been kind of depressed lately. There are a lot of reasons why that I won't get into just yet but, for those reasons I can explain, I suppose I should start on Thursday night.

Vicky and I were up in our room. I was in bed and Vicky was looking at pictures of me, taken back when I did "Whatever Happened to Me." My hair was spiked. My goatee was about as grown out as it was going to get. "This is the haircut you want," she asked me.

"Well," I said, "I think I need a change."

My hair was starting to get long, you see, and I thought that, in lieu of dealing with any of the real issues I have, a new haircut might perk me up. It was a good plan. It might have worked. But it was painfully obvious, after it was cut, that it didn't. I'd had it cut Friday night after work, by one of Vicky's friends named Joey. I'd told Joey that I'd wanted it spiked and she proceeded to make my head look something like a Chia pet. "I guess I didn't know what you meant by spiked," she then told me.

I was hoping to spend Saturday indoors.

Actually, I was hoping to spend Saturday in a very deep hole. The closest our apartment came to that was our living room, playing X-Box games. So…

I would have stayed there all day but I had plans with Sean. (Thank god we were only hanging out and not really going out in public. I imagined roving mobs of trenchant hair stylists fresh from shopping for produce… it wasn't pretty.)

Though my visit with Sean was very nice, by the time I got home, I was irate again.

Maybe it was that "existential capitalism" piece. I really liked it. After I wrote it, I thought, "That could be a piece in a book." But I was done with writing books. I'd committed myself to the theatre! Right? I couldn't go back to books! But hadn't I done that already? Hadn't I already considered working on "Vampire Society"? And what made it worse was the homeless man I saw on the way to Sean's place. Seeing him made me think about when I was in my apartment, when I was homeless in my home. Oh, I had a place to live but it wasn't a home. I could write about that, I thought, about people who live in structures but never feel at home.

Finally, I went outside to smoke a clove and told Vicky that I couldn't take it any more. I needed to write. I couldn't stand it. I was like a man who had several large, prune danishes and many cups of coffee but was not allowed in the bathroom. I was like a man at a whorehouse who hadn't had sex in months but forgot his wallet. I couldn't be picky any more. I couldn't impose rules and restrictions. I needed to write like an allergic needs to scratch.

So, I sat down for several hours and wrote. I didn't know what I would write about. I just did it.
At about 1:30am, I finished the second chapter in this new novel…. and my monitor broke.

Talk about timing.

Sunday morning, Vicky took me to another salon to get my hair… fixed. That was done but it's so short now… its…. my god.

And so a new me has come forth. New hair and new goals. I've decided I'm going to write a book. But I'm leaving my options open. I'm working on this new thing, letting it guide me where it will, with only about 4000 words thus far, while, concurrently, I am also going to keep working on "Vampire Society". It's got nearly 61,000 words; it deserves to be finished. (And due to it's intensity, I don't want more than about 80,000 words.)

I'll keep you posted.