Etain had an interesting blog dealing with a book on writing prompts that she talked at length about in her usual brilliant multiple personality stream-of-consciousness way. What was interesting, though, was the majority of comments men made about what makes men cry. I was emailing both Sid and Dan earlier, and the thought kinda stayed in my head. I cried after 9/11, but not until I had a complete meltdown about two weeks later, when the reality of our new century sucker punched me. I wasn't able to write for weeks. I worked it through by writing a story which involved my niece Ashley, titled "I'll Never Be Able To Protect Her Again." Many times my stories answer questions that need to be answered before I can move on. Also, there is a country and western video of Kenny Rogers singing his song "The Last Ten Years." (Sorry, Etain, that its not Headbanger Ball time). There's a line that goes "we lost Johnny and June Carter Cash, we even lost Superman." Then he looks up at a shooting star and says "We miss you, Chris." I can tell you forever about my love for the words and voice of Johnny Cash (who incidentally passed on 9/11/03), but the only other sucker punch I got this century (not counting my two muggings), was when Christopher Reeve died in October of 04. It was a Sunday and I saw it on AOL as soon as the screen blipped on. I wept completely before even reading the story as my dial-up computer brought the images up so slowly. Crap. I'm actually welling up now, quite seriously. In my collections of stories, I list those recently passed, and I added Chris Reeve to FIENDS BY TORCHLIGHT even though I never knew him. I always say "I'll catch up with you and tell you how everything else played out." I can take my border collie out later and we can stare at the sky together and I can tell him that one day I am going to meet Superman.
