Ooh, overdosed?

Hey, so, it seems I suck at updating the Ditch.

What all have I missed, this month?

Well, I failed to do a posting on L'Ecole Polytechnique's 15th Anniversary, for starters. A 15th anniversary of when one lone, bitter fucking man entered Montreal's famed engineering school and mowed down 14 women with his gun. Just another dude unable to compete in an equal rights world.

I've failed to do my annual ranting on the commercialization of Christmas, and how I loathe the "how many people do I know, let's buy them all something" bullshit everyone seems to subscribe to. In my world, CLOSE friends and family get gifts. So, like, I buy a half-dozen gifts, at best. Keep it simple, kids.

I've failed to do my waxing-on-the-approaching-year deal.

My life's been filled lately, filled with obligations, filled with transportation, filled with scheduling hell. I'm enjoying my life, don't get me wrong, but I sure as hell could use a little break from it all.

I'm fantasizing lately about, well, of course, sex, but also about a trip down to Oregon. There's this writer's / reader's hotel I frickin' love where all the rooms are designed in keeping with the authors that are the rooms' namesakes. IE: Ernest Hemingway.

It's on the water. Every time I go there, it replenishes me. No tv, no radio, no distractions, no phones. Just beds and books and drinks and food, the way a good life was meant to be -- and don't forget the wonders of the salt air. All very, very good.

Instead, I've got one day off until Christmas and it's being spent in the vacuous hell of family time. It'll be great to spend time with them all, but you know what I mean -- family time's always on those days when it just seems so damn inconvenient. It's not something you can blow off, like with a good friend. You have to go, or people Get Hurt.

And this year, with as little time off as I have, going is putting a cramp in my style.

Sigh.

I'm also doing this whole e-dating thing. It comes in waves. I do three or four dates in a row, then a dry spell, etc. Rinse, repeat, etc. How the fuck did I escape this insanity of dating when I was younger? I didn't have to do this. I had a man, always. If I was broken up with my ex, presto, someone else would pop out of the woodwork. I just never had to look. Now, it's all so fucking complicated.

But I'm enjoying it, sort of. I'm somewhat amused. I recently said that I'm sort of interested in younger guys. I'm 32, look 27 or so, and feel about 25. Suddenly, I've got these frickin' 23-year-old studmuffins trying to proposition me left, right, and center, and I'm insanely considering moving on the action. Who knows. I want to just enjoy myself and date for kicks. I've been too serious about it when considering about future potential, and I've also been feeling more comfortable in my own skin lately, so what the hell.

Anyhow, I've had a pretty whirlwind six or eight weeks. I considered killing this place many, many times, actually, and always fought the temptation. I haven't been writing lately, and that's my fault, and I know it. I need to put more time into it, and that's life. Know what it is? Fucking tutoring. It's killing my writing. I need the mundanity of an office job, it seems. My best writing in the last year has come during times when I've been doing the same thing daily, whether my course in August, in which some of my writing was fucking spot on for a change, or earlier this year, it's been when things have had a good pacing.

And now? UNREST! Insanity! Sheer terror! But mostly, bad work ethic. I'm trying to put my ass to work. For those who've been patting me on the back, don't. If I put ANY effort into getting published, then there might be serious results. So far, this has all been the result of dumb luck and good timing, and I'll take every goddamned bit of it. :)

Ah well. Things shall settle. Another year comes this way. If it's anything like this past has been, whew, well, I'm buckled up and I sez bring it. Quel fun, Batman. Quel.