The Rainbow Is in Danger of Collapse

I still lack the impetus to do anything but stare vacantly at the television or the monitor. I watched a view parts of a Castlevania: Lament of Innocence walkthrough. It might be a fun game to play, but watching it can be stultifying, as the castle floors are sprawling, repetitive, and drearily uniform. Leon Belmont is pretty, though.

I also watched the ending of Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. It breaks my heart to see someone as righteous, good, and innocent as Gabriel Belmont broken and perverted. I can't fault his reasoning, though; if I had saved the world, defeated Satan, and voluntarily become a vampire in order to save an ungrateful world again, and was still denied reunion with my beloved wife on either plane, then I'd be pissy, too, For being a font of unconditional benevolence, God is frequently an incredible douche.

Getting Patrick Stewart to voice Zobek was quite the coup. I'm looking forward to the rumored release of a trailer for the sequel on May 31st and will be disappointed if it turns out to be idle chatter.

PC installed the neighbor's new water heater and fixed the dripping shower wand, which did, in fact, need a washer, but alas, new troubles are afoot. Asshole Neighbor is dragging ass on getting an electrician to run new wire for the pole the utility company wants to install. He wants his friend in a nearby town to do it, of course, probably because he's cheap. God knows if he's qualified or licensed for a job of this magnitude. If PC hadn't run this patch, then we would have been without water for a week with no end in sight.

If that weren't bad enough, the power line across the road made an ominous crackling, sizzling noise this afternoon.

"Well, that didn't sound too good," the red-necked angel drawled.

No, no, it didn't. The last thing we need is for the entire neighborhood to go dark and kiss their electronics goodbye because one tight-fisted asshat and a lazy power company can't be assed to do their jobs and fix a documented short in their lines.

As a nasty bonus, PC mentioned that my mother would be coming up next week. Why not? Wouldn't want me feeling good about myself and content with life for too long. Then I might get the crazy notion that my life was mine. Maybe she'll be too lazy to make good on the threat or fall down an open manhole.

Hey, with Rammstein on break, my hopes are few and frail.

Hope Is an Unbreakable Spoon

I watched a bit more of the Castlevania: Lament of Innocence walkthrough. The fight mechanics are still hideously monotonous, but the Medusa boss fight was entertaining, and I loved the music for the Thunder Elemental miniboss battle.

I pulled myself out of the creative doldrums and resumed work on Sprache XIX, and that has lifted my spirits. Writing always does, and I should know better than to neglect in a fit of useless melancholy. The very act of writing, of imagining and translating that imagination into keystrokes, is therapeutic. It distracts me from the fears that constantly gnaw at the base of my brain and gives voice to the demons that refuse to be exorcised. I feel clean after I write, relieved, as if I have purged something noxious and terrible. The dread and the loneliness always return, but until they do, I am light-hearted and can let myself believe in happily ever after. People need the hope of one-in-a-million chances and happily ever afters. It gets them out of bed in the morning when all else fails, and it's the spoon that never tarnishes and slips from your hand. Humans are a doggedly hopeful lot; we even hope for life after death, for another ride on life's carousel.

I hope when I write. I hope to taste of love and desire and loyalty. I hope for chance encounters that will never happen. I hope to touch someone's life deeply and leave a positive mark after I'm gone. I hope to be somewhere other than where I am, and for someone to miss me when I'm gone.

Writing loosens my tongue and lets me share feelings and dreams I would otherwise bury for fear of mockery and petty cruelty and simple-minded hatred. It keeps my own bitterness and hatred in check, robs them of their power and allows me to move on and forward. It does not banish my wounds, but it keeps me from dwelling on them, and such a gift is crucial for someone who must necessarily fixate and obsess just to accomplish the most mundane tasks, like peeing and managing my meager finances.

Writing is the safety valve that the government can't legislate away, and that an overweening public can't wrest from me "for my own good." Not even my mother, hateful harridan that she is, can steal it from me. If I were banished to a desert isle, I would ask for a stick with which to write in the sand, and if the waves washed my words away, then I would write them anew, unceasing and intransigent. The ocean would win in the end because it is eternal and I am not, but its victory would come only when the stick fell from my hands and the dust of my bones mingled with the sea foam.

I have long thought that writers die only when they have no more stories to tell, and though my cage is small, my hope runs deep and long.