January 12th, 2015

I'd like to start 2015 off on a different note. This year Slapstik Skateboard Art will be working with 6 artists from different sects of the  arts including painting, photo collage, woodwork, writing, and cinema. This year's first submission comes from an anonymous writer who's experiences have been felt by many when the weight of responsibilities suffocates your creative spirit. Enjoy it. Share it. Ask someone how they're doing and actually mean it. 

It has been years since I have written anything.  I wrote when I was fat; when I carried my baggage in rolls around my belly and thighs – soft and doughy. When I decided I no longer wanted to shop in the “women’s” department, I stopped writing.  Every mile on the treadmill, every lap in a pool dulled the thoughts. The pain of self-hatred could easily be channeled into competitive drive – to go faster, farther. It was easy to hide.

In the intervening 4 years, I’ve been issued several challenges to write. In each case I’d say I’d do it, only to fail, and find the same excuses over and over again. “I have nothing to write about” or “I don’t have enough time,” were my go to reasons. I could have come up with some lame bit of trite fluff to write.  I could have borrowed from Sun Kil Moon and commented on the frailty of human life through the lens of rural trash. Can aerosol cans really explode and kill someone that is just going through the mundane chore of taking out the garbage?  But I don’t like to write about something I know nothing about and I had tried to convince myself that I knew nothing interesting, or painful, or anything that need to be fleshed out.  The truth is, between then and today, I only managed to gain more baggage,  more resentment, and  more disgust.

For the first time in 11 days I was alone: No spouse, no children, no relatives.   Quickly reaching a stopping point at work, I decided I needed to have an orgasm – one that was more than just a quick rubbing with my hands in the shower while people knocked on the door to ask inane questions about meals and schedules and to inform me that so and so was or was not doing what was or was not asked of him/her. I walked to my room and from under the bed pulled the case that contained a wide array of vibrators, dildos and other assorted toys of a sex life gone stale. Damn it was locked. Bastard, except I knew where he would hide a key; Fifteen years of marriage teaches you such things. I reached on top of the closet shelf and retrieved the key to the gun safe.  Besides guns, birth certificates, expired credit cards, our marriage license (anything of remote importance), resided in the safe. It was the perfect place to hide a key for a box of sex toys, except it wasn’t there. 

I rifled through the old cards, papers, and documents. My search method had become a bit furious and urgent.  I paused for a moment to think and that is when I saw the one loaded gun. It was kept loaded for self-defense supposedly. Though I have shot a gun a few times I am still skittish and  squeamish of  the thought of a gun, let alone a loaded one, being in the same house as my daughters. Today I stared at it and then picked it up. I didn’t even know what type but I could feel its weight pull down my wrist. I ran my hand over the cold smooth barrel and though I could end it now. I stared for a good five minutes and thought it would be so easy – I could just lie in the bathtub, put the muzzle in my mouth, and fire. But then I thought today is my mom’s birthday, and while I’ve been known to be a shitty daughter, this be a shitty gift, even for me. I thought that the Christmas tree is still up and if I killed myself now the tree would stay up for months.   I thought that I have some pounds I would like to drop and if I killed myself now there might be a few more grams of ashes left at the crematory than if I wait until I am thinner. I can’t really leave my daughters. Who will expose them to good music and English Premier League? I put the gun down and locked the safe.

Still on the hunt for the key, I opened the nightstand drawer. The key was there –too obvious. I opened the case and stared at the toys. I grabbed the Hitachi wand and then put it back in the case. Having an orgasm no longer seemed important, or necessary, or even appropriate. I locked the case, returned it and the key to hiding and went back to work.

Hours later I hurried out the door to swim. While waiting at a light I searched for my goggles, quickly realizing I left them at home.  In my mind I had created some simile of the cold pool water gliding over me just as I had glided my hand over the gun or some pathetic simile like that. In a moment I realized the ridiculousness of that imagery though I still filed it way for further mention.

By the way trash pick-up is tomorrow.