Sipping my Dirty Martini, with a smile

Ahhhh. As I stood under warm jets of water this morning I felt my brainpan kick into gear, a sensation I've missed for too long. The past couple of months have been shrouded with an intellectual torpor and it's felt as though every ounce of mental and physical energy has been sapped by the task of swimming upstream. Although I've had plenty of time to write (what with being unemployed and all), the effect of being jobless crushed any creative urge I had, drowning my self-esteem in a miasmic sludge of doubt and self-pity. Whenever I approached the keyboard my muse sputtered and siezed since it seemed that all I had to say was, "I suck, life sucks, looking for work sucks, everything sucks, sucks, sucks, sucks worse than a pound of Reagan dimes." Not a pretty scenario and in retrospect I'm glad I spared my 2 or 3 readers from a sip of that blige water, spared myself from the opprobrium of posting that poop. As I entered here tonight, I saw more than a dozen entries "saved" because they were either utter crap or I didn't have the motivation (or creative wherewithal) to finish them.

In short, being unemployed hammered me in a big way. Conversely, the sizzling synapses this morning was an indication that knowing I was on my way to my first day on the job had instantly revitalized my faith that I indeed possess some small brain. It was as if someone had charged my long-dead battery over night. Suddenly, as I soaked in the shower, I was analyzing lines of poetry, parsing syllogisms, composing lines of thought that only I heard but would get filed until the time was right to pull them out, stocking the cache of ammo that had been obscured for so many weeks. My mind, MIA and unrecognizable to those who know it, had returned.

The blog neglect of the past couple of months was due to my inability to produce anything more than a desultory post because dragging myself to the computer was almost painful. When I post almost every day it's because the words blitz my brain like the swarm of Box Elder Beetles on my window screens - I yearn to get online and align electrons in such a way to say what's going on inside. That was missing as I spent my days filling out applications, composing cover letters, emailing out resumes and dealing with despair of rejection, poverty, and the stress of the desuetude that resembled my day by day existence.

Having a steady income, sure, it's wonderful, a life-saver but the side benefit of feeling like I'm back on my game makes this turn of events so much sweeter. So sweet in fact that I don't care a bit if there's zero comments. Being back on the horse and shooting from the hip (slinging western cliches like they're trail muffins) is enough for now. Yee haw.