Someone asked me how many Lee Dumbass stories I have and I said more than there are grains of sand upon the beach.
If you caught me at the right moment you might even see a sly grin slip across my face and hear me admit to embellishing one or two of them because no one is that stupid.
Ok, that is not true, he is and so is Donnie Do-Nothing our Toddler-in-Chief but we’ll do our best to go a different direction.
Why?
Because I am fired up about a bunch of stuff and the complete lack of support for dealing with those things which has me thinking it might be time to find trouble and go bar hunting.
Just Another Promise To Break
Been reading a lot of Whitman lately because old Walt soothes my soul and there is always a piece of wisdom in those words that I find useful.
I was thinking about the story of the king and the thief over here and wondered if I had done a good job of describing the king, where his anger came from and why.
Because in the story the thief is a just a fool of minor significance and is supposed to help illustrate why it is important to have clarity about why you are angry and with whom.
If the queen told the thief about the letters it made more sense for his irritation to be with her than with the thief.
But if she hadn’t and the thief had found them on his own, well then his ire shouldn’t be focused upon her at all and it should solely be upon the thief.
As I thought about the dialogue they might exchange I came up with line from the subhead, just another promise to break.
It could be pretty powerful or it could be pretty cheesy, all depends on how it plays out.
Might even weave in a little Springsteen into it as part of the soundtrack.
Born in this world, darling, with few days
And trouble never far behind
Man and woman circle each other in a cage
A cage that’s been handed down the line
Lost and running ‘neath a million dead stars
Tonight let’s shed our skins and slip these barsHappy- Bruce Springsteen
It has been a very hard day and it could end up being a very hard night.
These are not words you want to write at 11 PM, especially when they aren’t part of dialogue for a story you are working on.
Since life doesn’t give you choices about when the good, the bad or the indifferent times fall you have to just roll with it.
So I am sitting here with chains wrapped around my left and right biceps, wondering if I should begin flexing now.
At some point I have to test the strength of the chains and see if they are the kind I can break with my own mettle or figure out if I need to try a different method.
It is not easy and it is exacerbated by a different sort of heartache than the stuff you read in Harlequin romances.
This is deep and profound, the sort that changes you…forever.
Can’t say I am surprised because after 18 months I have learned to embrace this uninvited guest and to try to smother it.
I might not be able to shoo it away like a housefly but I can take its energy and use it for my own purposes.
Might as well ride the wave of emotion and let the words flow freely. You never know where they might take you.
Sometimes I think you’ll find scraps of my writing for the next 100 years and sometimes I think I’ll just quit one day and walk away.
That is how it goes with some things.
I am engaged and involved until I am not and then it is just done.
