On being a possum (more about the hiatus)

I have been feeling like a ferret lately. I took out my vacation around the 12th of July, but I haven’t been able to do anything worthwhile through all this time, and the hourglass is ticking. See? Even my metaphors are falling apart. Truth is, I’ve been feeling more like a possum. A possum with very small hands, and life is so big.

I really can’t blame the weather. I blame the bloody instability of the weather. One day it’s real fucking hot with sweating Americans posing for pictures outside my window (while I’m quite visible in the background through the window, wearing my bathrobe and throwing Westside/Eastside hand signs to gangsta rap). And the next day you have a fucking glacier outside the door.
All this amounts to the annoying asynchrony between my clothing and the state of the world. Since I always remember the raison d’ĂȘtre of weather forecasts when they’re going through the last bits of the North, I can only depend that it’ll be something like the day before. Which it never is. Right now I’m wearing long-legged khaki shorts and red mittens with flowers embroidered on the top.

But seriously? It is the subject I can never seem to leave out from this blog; me moaning about my writing blocks. I guess all professions of passion have their Marina Trenches and Mount fucking Everests, which is fine and easy to ignore — as long as it doesn’t happen to you.
When you’ve been depending on your particular talents and the going is good for a while you take them for granted. So when inspiration disappears without a trace you feel as empty as a possum, hiding in the innermost corner of the bed beneath the sheets. And while I agree with science in that possums rarely use bedsheets – if at all just real dirty ones – this fact has nothing to do with what I’m saying. Facts seldom do.

Which brings us to the real problem.

Up to now I’ve been the kind of lion tamer you read about in the paper: Bereft of authority one of his cats runs amock and eats a couple of kids. Shorts, t-shirts, Mickey Mouse backpacks and all. While most kids are a pain in the ass nowadays, it doesn’t really constitute success in this analogy. And this is a speech I have often given my sister, although she is all out of big cats.

A situation is what it is, fact, and your life is affected by the manner with which you position yourself in relation to the situation. A possum does not make for the absolutely perfect lion tamer. But I do, as long as I practice what I preach and stop acting like a fucking possum.
So I am going away to a secluded cabin in the forest, to practice my lumberjack zen, and beat some sense into my cats.

5 thoughts on “On being a possum (more about the hiatus)

  1. If this is what you call a writing block. You have no idea what a real writing block is. At least you can write SOMETHING.

    I even stop talking when I get a writers block.

  2. No, that would be an obstructing object that you swallowed, such as Lego for instance. A writer’s block on the other hand, won’t be a physical object like Lego.

    But seriously, there’s a difference between writing and writing. I can write all day any day, but write for real? The kind of shit that can set you for life if you do it right, do it your way?
    Does not happen every day, to say the least:)

  3. DO NOT taunt happy fun ball with the lumberjack meme! If you’re gonna mention it, it needs to come out and stomp something… like a possum

    I want pics.

  4. Good point. Its true. I have never experienced that. But someday… I hope I will. *drops to one knee and looks longingly to the gods*

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