Graveyard Dirt: Two Worlds and In-between

Baby Steps

So, I open Word because, FUCK, Lent is only a week away and in a week, almost sort've exactly, both Italics and I go into celibate mode until our Easter wedding. (TECHNICALLY, I'M THE ONE WHO GOES CELIBATE, AND SINCE ITALICS ISN'T CURRENTLY DATING THE OBSERVATION OF RITUAL PURIFICATION GETS OBSERVED BY BOTH OF US. SUCKS TO BE SPIRITUALLY INVOLVED WITH ME, I KNOW, BUT AT LEAST HE CAN STILL RECEIVE HANDJOBS.)

And because practicing celibacy (THAT INCLUDES MASTURBATION OF SELF, IF YOU'RE, YOU KNOW, WONDERING) for something like 1/6th of the year (IT'S RELIGIOUS, OKAY? LET'S ALL PRETEND I'M A BETTER PERSON FOR KEEPING IT IN MY PANTS DURING A TIME UNIQUE TO CATHOLICISM EVEN THOUGH I'M NOT CATHOLIC. <- LOL, BUT I WAS BAPTIZED SO I AM AMONGST YOUR SHEEP, CAKE HATER, CLOTHED AND DISGUISED LIKE ANY OTHER HELPLESS LAMB THAT NEEDS SHEPARDING) is so goddamn easy I decided to up the ante this year; I decided to give up Livejournal and drastically scale back my use of the intranetz.

(I may be giving up good old "EL JAY" and huge amount of time on the INTRANETZ but I'm //NOT// giving up Graveyard Dirt because I'm divinely, and enigmatically contradictory like that. And, also, because I'm deliberately getting rid of distractions so I can focus more clearly on GD to make a longstanding fantasy a reality, baby.)

I'll be honest with EVERY SINGLE PERSON READING THIS SENTENCE RIGHT NOW (past, present AND future!) that I've been using Livejournal as a crutch because I'm a lazy fucking whore. (And in a week's time I'll be a lazy fucking whore in spirit.) I've gotten use to the interface, I've gotten use to selecting privacy modes, I've gotten use to "POST AN ENTRY" always being open, I've gotten use to posting the equivalent of yellow sticky notes to remember significant spiritual experiences and observations and I've grudgingly gotten use to the immediacy of unsolicited advice, regardless of topic, conversation, and/or intent.

("I THINK YOU SHOULD BE DOING //THIS//!" FUCK, DUDE, DID I EVEN //ASK YOU// WHAT YOU THOUGHT? AT WHAT POINT DID MY LIFE BECOME //YOUR// CHOOSE YOUR OWN ADVENTURE? LOL, TURN TO PAGE 56 AND FIND OUT HOW I REALLY FEEL!)

A lot of time and effort and words that should've been going HERE were going THERE and it was only getting way, way more convenient to hit "POST TO..." in broken, fragmented sentences (OR UNBROKEN, UNFRAGMENTED SENTENCES IN CAPS LOCK) than make a semblance of sense in what's supposed to be, ostensibly, a record of the things I'm doing, seeing and feeling. I mean, even NOW I have "POST AN ENTRY" open in another tab JUST IN CASE I CAN'T KEEP IT TOGETHER IN MOVABLE TYPE.

So I was using Livejournal as an immediacy crutch. And, more recently, I've been using it as an entry writing crutch. I've literally been popping open livejournal, writing an entry for Graveyard Dirt as a Livejournal entry, spellchecking it, modifying it, editing it and then, instead of hitting "POST TO..." I've been copying and pasting the finished project into an empty "NEW ENTRY" tab and saving/publishing it for all of the world to see.

That? That last bit? That's totally bizarre, and totally weird and that shit makes me a little uncomfortable at the very bottom of my soul. (Without dragging out my INTERNET BABY BOOK for strangers to see I'll just say I'VE BEEN DOING THIS SHIT, THIS JOURNALING SHIT, ON AND OFF FOR //YEARS//. I've spent YEARS AND FUCKING YEARS in Movable Type's 2.5 interface and yet, after several years off, suddenly it's COLD AND ALIEN AND UNFAMILIAR AND UNWELCOMING.)

Come Ash Wednesday (the 25th of this month) my preferred method of record keeping and entry writing will be blacklisted. In eight days my self-assigned crutch - which I've grown to depend on, lean on, sleep on, fuck on - gets impounded until Easter morning. This is, needless to say, V. serious, yo. (AND, AS WE ALL KNOW, I'M COMPLETELY SERIOUS IN THE LEAST SERIOUS WAY POSSIBLE.) LULZ aside, I do take this shit pretty hardcore which means you won't find me picking at the tire lock with a hairpin. In fact, there's no hypothetical chainsaw fit with nuclear weapons that's going undo that booted, impounded crutch.

So - SO! So, I open Word because, FUCK, Lent is only a week away and in a week, almost sort've exactly, both Italics and I go into celibate mode until our Easter wedding and, if that wasn't enough, I'm voluntarily impounding my nitrous fitted journaling crutch to refamiliarize myself with an old adversary.

(OKAY, THAT'S HARSH. I GUESS WE DID HAVE A //FEW// GOOD TIMES, WORD, AND IT'S SHITTY OF ME TO HAVE SAID THAT, ESPECIALLY DURING THIS VERY FRAGILE AND EMOTIONAL TIME WHEN WE'RE TRYING TO REESTABLISH OUR ONCE VERY INTIMATE CONNECTION.)

Word, for the first time in a year, was opened on Feb. 17th, approximately 8:08 in the morning. I stared at the flat expanse of a clear, white screen, absolutely virgin, absolutely untouched and unsoiled. I stared at the flat expanse of a clear, white screen that, unlike Livejournal's "POST TO" interface, went on like a vast, endless ocean.

I stared at the solid block of white, neatly framed by my 600X800 resolution, and I didn't see PROMISE or A NEW BEGINNING or even HOPE. I saw the blankest sheet of paper ever known to man. I saw a white black hole, where any and all text entered and returned would immediately sink into a netherworld of eternity. I saw dark matter in negative image, and in that tonal inversion I understood that there would never be enough words to fill this blankest sheet of white black hole paper, neatly framed by my 600X800 resolution.

I got angry.

I got angry at Word. At the blank, white screen. At the cursor, lamely blinking in the corner. At the unnecessary, built-in tabs and drop-down menus above. At not remembering and not knowing which was //MY// font size and font spacing. At realizing I now had a souped up version of Word, one I've never actually used before. At the fucking blank, white screen, that somehow looked bigger and whiter and blanker than any other fucking blank, white screen I've ever seen in my entire fucking life.

And before I knew it I GOT FUCKING MAD AT THE FUCKING SCREEN. I mean, MAD, MAD. I mean ANGRY TO THE FUCKING CORE, DRUNK, WHITE TRASH ITCHING FOR A FUCKING FIGHT AND WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU FUCKING LOOKING AT YOU FUCKING MOTHERFUCKER mad. (KIR MAD! JUNIE MAD!)

...so I wrote the entirety of this entry in Movable Type's "NEW ENTRY" interface because HEY, I might still be using a crutch to write BUT AT LEAST IT ISN'T LIVEJOURNAL, RIGHT? (Baby steps, my dear and gentle readers, baby steps.)