Home of the Soul Cookie

Wow. More than two months since my last update. That’s pretty sad (in the "what the fuck has he been doing?" sense, not the "stereotypical country music song" sense).

The problem with writing one of these things is that I am not sure what to write.

Do I discuss my guilty pleasures - that I really do like Britney Spears, the commercials that air during the Super Bowl, and Dexter’s Laboratory? That I’m really, really excited about the new JLA cartoon series just announced (with Kevin Conroy returning again as the voice of Batman)? That commercials for hair care products - you know, the ones with the beautiful women who have long, beautiful, flowing hair - absolutely captivate me?

I suppose I could divulge all my deepest, darkest secrets, the ones about myself that even my closest friends in the world don’t necessarily know. Wouldn’t that be something? Secrets that I haven’t shared - or can’t share - with those dear to me I instead post up here, for all the world to see (and for Google to archive for future generations)! Well… let me give you the teensiest, tiniest clue: not gonna happen. Not here, anyway. There’s a damn fine reason why the concepts of "public" and "private" exist, thankyouverymuch. No public discussion of The Secret World of Kevin.

So do I instead discuss my seemingly endless fear? That I’m afraid to write because I’m afraid it won’t be good - scratch that - …because I’m afraid it won’t be perfect? I think I’m gifted, but I harbor the same damn insecurity I have had for a long time, that maybe I’m just fooling myself, that any monkey with a typewriter could churn out better dreck than I can. “Than I can….” I can, but I don’t. I suppose it’s a bit like exercise (which I’ve just started seriously attempting for the first time in my life, and left me tell you: it’s a bitch), in that the first time doing it’s the hardest. Once that’s done, the next hardest time is the second try, and so on… I want to write, and so I think it’s time I stopped worrying all the stupid what ifs and but hows and just started WRITING. (What a fuckin’ concept, eh?) To reuse/overuse the exercise comparison, I’ve got to start working my literary muscles so that I can, as JMS put it, get past writing the crap that I inevitably will, and get on to the really good stuff that’s somewhere inside me. ‘Cause the alternative is looking back from ten more years down the road and lamenting all the wasted time and all the missed possibilities - and that scares me more than putting some dinky words down on paper.

I read once somewhere - in Oprah’s fitness book of a few years back, I think - something along these lines: A fitness trainer was discussing the timeline of his client’s physical fitness plan with her. She was upset that he was discussing the plan in terms of years. “Look,” he said. “You’re what, 35 now?” She nodded. “And if you do this for three years, how old will you be?” Thirty-eight, she responded. “Right. Now, how old will you be if you don’t do this?”

And therein lies my challenge. Time will pass. Ten years from now, will I look back at this time in my life as the point where I got my act together and shaped my destiny as I saw fit? Or will this be just another year in a life of temporal flotsam?

Time will tell.

Anyway, I’m sure I’ll find something to discuss eventually. If you’ve got something that I should rant about up here, drop me a line and let me know.