Living in a state of decay

When learning to live with herniated disks you discover that certain everyday actions begin to require attention and care that you have never previously afforded them. You learn this very quickly. You also forget it just as fast.

Some days the pain goes away, and you forget what is lurking in your spine, waiting to pounce upon your helpless nerves like a Vietcong ambush. It is on these days that pain returns with what seems to be a sadist's relish as you do something as trivial as rolling over in bed, bend down to get something out of the fridge, or my favorite, getting off the toilet just a scoch too quickly. Nothing makes you feel quite like a man as the possibility that your next trip to the bathroom may sentence you to bed rest for two days, or find you clinging with all of your might to the shower curtain rod so you don't end up with a face full of floor tile. It's a frightening prospect. All I need is a hemorrhoid and a trip to the loo will become a gauntlet of gladiatorial proportions.

There is nothing you can do for it but find a way to go back in time and prevent yourself from getting injured in the first place, and that has a whole new set of logistics far too complicated for someone who can't remember to get off the toilet slowly. Well, perhaps one day I will learn what I can and can not do, but I doubt it.

Those inconsiderate bastards who've come before us

When you take it upon yourself to become a writer you inevitably run across the uncomfortable situation of finding that what you have so ingeniously and brilliantly created in the pages of another author. Many times these authors are your would be contemporaries and peers (because after all, you will one day have you name on the best sellers list with them). The emotion that arises from said situation is often a grudging admiration. Yes, they have obviously stolen your hard thought plot devices or characters, but you feel better knowing that your thought process follows, or I should say "coincides" with that of the contemporary greats to whose company you aspire. However, sometimes you find yourself stumbling upon your wonderful plot twist, or sinister villain in the pages of some long dead author.

The nerve of those worm ridden asses. The bold, unapologetic nerve.

In these cases you can never be sure if you struggled through plot purgatory, emerging victoriously through your own devices, or if you have simply pulled up some long lost factoid or anecdote absorbed through osmosis some long time ago. Either way, you enter the precarious position of deciding whether or not your ideas border on homage or plagiarism.

lately I've been encountering this scenario with a disturbing frequency. I could simply stop reading my favorite authors, but I suppose I would rather discover that I am a dirty thief for myself than have some editor or proofreader cut me down for it. It does get extremely frustrating whenever it happens, and it leaves me questioning my abilities like nothing else. As I said, on one hand it makes me feel good to think that I could conjure up something akin to the musings of someone like Neil Gaiman or Stephen King. On the other hand, what the hell am I supposed to write now? I am almost determined to through darts at a wall filled with unrelated absurdities, but somehow know that such action would only result in my finding that Chuck Palahniuk had already covered such great with defter skill and darker wit. Then again, there are always children's books, a market in which redundancy and similarity are both applauded and rewarded.

If all else fails there is still supernatural teen romance, which apparently doesn't require all that much in way of plausibility, originality, or talent.

Decisions, decisions......

Knack

When I was about eight years old I remember riding home from a trip to my grandmother's when I got it into my head that I would be a British actor when I grew up. It's safe to say that I have made no headway to attaining that dream, a large part of this failing stemming from the very annoying reality that I am in fact, not British. I have, however, picked up a knack for impersonating accents, which has proven to be good for absolutely nothing other than entertaining drunk people. Such seems to be the story of my life up to this point; a never ending list of goals resulting in a never ending list of knacks that serve as nothing more than interesting anecdotes on file to be whipped out at a moment's notice during idle conversation.

Unfortunately I suffer from what could be considered a disinterest in most social situations and absolutely despise idle conversation.

Taking these factors into account, my knacks become nothing more than lingering reminders of my failures and wasted time. I can draw well enough to impress those with no skill, but not well enough to garner respect from those with a modicum of talent, or I can discuss in depth the military strategies of the ancient Greeks. I am host to a surfeit of other skills and facts similar in their diversity and impracticality. One could refer to me as the proverbial "jack of all trades." Such a title has been applied to me once or twice, and while it sounds nifty and makes me seem capable and ready for anything, it serves to do nothing more than highlight my lack of intense skill at any given task.

This is of course a criticism I place on myself, being at an age where one can't help but assess their life and the choices they have made. This self examination has been a source of extreme discontent lately, pouring self loathing over myself like rednecks pour ranch dressing over their "salad" at a cheap buffet. If you have never seen rednecks at a cheap buffet, well, you owe it to yourself if for nothing other than the pure anthropological observations and insight one may glean into the nature of human beings and food.

But I digress.

It's about time I actually did something with all of the knowledge and skills I have so greedily amassed.