The Storm

 

A storm...

"Life is a shitstorm, in which art is our only umbrella."

- Mario Vargas Llosa

 

I've been thinking about New Year's resolutions - my own, and those of my (which here means John Hodgman's) 700 hoboes. Lately, thinking has been a struggle - and creativity, normally one of my core strengths as a human, has become depressingly hard to summon. A few months ago, I scrolled back to the beginning of this blog and reread every post. I cringed at a few lingering typos, and at some clunky prose and even clunkier ideas, but I laughed a lot, and came away feeling pretty good about a lot of it. I also couldn't help but notice that all that fun and frolic and productivity has dropped off rather precipitously since sometime in 2015. Over the past five years, I've managed to peck out about seven little blog posts per year. In the five years before 2016, I averaged 31 (with that drop-off starting in 2015). You might see where I'm going with this.

Oh, tell me you're NOT going to attempt to blame five years of writer's block on the President!

Okay, firstly - it really is a shitstorm, out there. Look:

See? Stormy! Told you!

Secondly - I haven't truly had writer's block. Over those same five years, I did manage to crank out five more of my little Camp NaNoWriMo novels - and one or two of them may even have some potential. And the few blog posts I've emitted haven't been bad. It's just a challenge to create, lately. Joy is in short supply, and hope has been outlawed.

But, yeah. I kinda DO blame my personal creativity drought on the bloviating tangerine Mussolini currently stealing the silverware and setting fire to the White House and the nation, flipping the Monopoly board over as he tantrums his way toward the door. Okay - technically, I blame the storm, but we all know it is partly of his making. You've seen it. It's real. It's everywhere. It's bad. It's a shitstorm. No need to waste time describing it. It started in 2015, and has built and built and built its way to the Category Five monster that rages around all of us, today.

So. What to do? First, I'll find the horizon. Remember that all storms end. Eventually:

Yes, I know the horizon was visible in the first two pics. Shut up.

 

Second, if I can't be funny or creative, then dammit I'm gonna be twisted. Like, baby-hobo-in-a-blender twisted. Here:

America.

That picture will be old enough to rent a car, this year, and it still says more than most of my other photographs. I resolve to get the old Nikon out - and maybe the ancient 35mm Minoltas - and take some weird pictures. There! A resolution! I probably won't do it.

Ooh! Wait! Here come some more!

• If the country continues to burn, I'm gonna toast some marshmallows.
• I will become a better pickpocket, and not get caught all the time.
  
• I guess I'll try (harder) to avoid the plague like the plague.
• Once the smoke clears - and yes, there will be smoke - I'm going to go downtown and take a good, long sniff, just to prove to myself that even the foulest four-year stenches can dissipate.
• I will finally find an editor or agent or something, and try to get my 2013 novel published. You guys know anyone?
• I'm going to go through the building where I work, and take down all the calendars. They're all stuck on March 2020, and they make me sad sometimes.
• I will see the stars for what they are, and feel the cumulative age of their light.
  
• Two words: ferrett-juggling. I guess that's one hyphenated word. Whatever. Gonna need one more ferret for this.
• I resolve to get one more endangered black-footed ferret, for the ferret-juggling, if [Maris] says yes.
• [Maris] said no. It'll have to be 2 ferrets and a panda.
• This year, I will find a new place to hang the cute little lighthouse cross-stitch my sister gave [Maris] and me when we got married. The new towels in that bathroom don't quite go with the colors in the cross-stitch, and while it's not a problem at this time, I fear it could become one. UPDATE: [Maris] would rather just change the towels. Crisis averted!
  
• I'm going to get my grilled cedar-plank salmon to turn out as perfectly as my late father-in-law's always did.
• Gonna find my Ebn-Ozn t-shirt.
• Mirrored contacts. I've wanted them since I was fourteen.
• Who am I kidding? I will never get my grilled salmon to come out the way Dad-in-law's did. 
• I resolve to take the Christmas tree down.
• I will learn to like snow. HAHAHAHAHA just seeing if you're paying attention.
  
• Drink more water. I'm not going to do this. I'm telling YOU to drink more water. Please.
• Okay, I'll drink more water, too. There's water in gin, right?
• I will laugh at the typo on my 10 years of service certificate at work, every day - instead of rolling my eyes at it.
• I will demand a better future.
  
• I will stop making lists.
• I will stop making lists.
  
• I will stop repeating myself.
• See what I did there?
  
• And I will hold [Maris]'s hand more - especially when she's trying to type. [blogger's note: on my phone, I have a shortcut set up so that when I type two m's, I get the full [Maris]. I keep trying that on this laptop, and obviously it doesn't work, and it wasn't until about the third try that I realized why.]
• I resolve to be a little smarter, maybe.

Okay, that's all for now. If you're still here, you are a trooper, and I applaud your patience. Thanks for climbing inside my head for a few minutes. It's time for my martini. I will toast to the end of the storm - and to the art that protects us in the meantime...

Photo by mm - see? I did it again! Photo by [Maris]