Writer’s Blog: The fear you will run out of things to write in your blog.
I will consider my life a triumph when I see such self-styled terms appear in the mainstream press. Unfortunately, I have discovered that my talent, if any, tends more to pulling out of the air of the zeitgeist the same puns and newly minted phrases that others are plucking out at the same time. I hope I’m wrong, but try googling “writer’s blog” With my luck it’s already patented by a writer from the Jon Stewart ‘Daily Show’. Ditto for “spintelligentsia.”
Still, some linguistic "coincidences" are too intense to be coincidental. Last week, I wrote a poem that appears at the end of this entry (Neglect). It starts “The line is thin between malign neglect and benign neglect…” Not exactly an everyday phrase, wouldn’t you agree? I sent it to my sister Erica, and she had not even received it when I spoke to my sister Sandra and was told my Aunt Francoise’s breast cancer had reoccurred--sort of. I say sort of because I was told by my mother, “the tumor is somewhere in between benign and malign."
I won’t ask what the chances are of such a coincidence because the chances are zero. I cannot believe that it is a coincidence. I do know that I grabbed the pen to write that poem completely out of the blue, and the line poured out quite spontaneously. (Well, that's not completely true. I was sort of angry at someone who can't seem to pick up a pen and write me. Still it was written before I heard about my Aunt.)
Art truly is the capacity to get out of the way.
Today there were ripples from the departure of D-Roll. As I recounted, he left some debts. He also left a CD player. Poor Harold, who is an absolute sweetheart, was somehow assigned to gather some things from D-Roll’s locker and so it was assumed he had the CD player.
Two not-so-nice black guys accosted Harold (also black) today when he was sitting on his top bunk, insisting he knew where the CD player was. When Harold swore he didn’t, a fist was thrown that Harold missed only due to his very quick reflexes and the luck of being on the top bunk. The aggressor’s buddy managed to coax him away. They were from another dorm, so“roaming” during an unlock, and had to get out of there pronto.
What they didn’t know was that Harold’s absent bunkie is TeFunk, who returned today after four days in the hospital on an antibiotic IV that finally cured his coughing. TeFunk happened to be picking up meds at the infirmary when Harold was threatened, but woe to them if they come back when he is present.Tefunk has an extraordinary build, and I'm told as well a deadly right hook.
MCO 2004
P.S. Everyone please send you supportive thoughts and prayers to my Aunt Francoise on October 25th, when she has her surgery. I don’t really believe in the power of prayer, but I do believe in my capacity to be completely wrong, so just in case, do pray.
Neglect
There’s a line
between
benign neglect
and
malign neglect.
No place where they transect
except perhaps
in that almost void
where friendships are dissected.
Where those bonds
of emotional ligature
are disconnected.
The ties once laid down
with such gentle deliberation
now sabotaged
abandoned
every day
a little death
as you sink
our relation
ship.
Your absent pen
a present scalpel
dishonoring what was once
live and sacred.
These tendons needed tending,
not ending,
not
neglect.
MCO 2004
