Monday, April 9, 2007

The Sword Of Time



Fair warning, this entry will be all over the place. The Lamactal I take for being bipolar sometimes makes a rod pop in my brain and I get quite suicidal. This only lasts for a day or so and I keep the wolves at bay, but right now all I can think about is replacing the broken glass inside my fingers and shoulders with one huge shard sticking out of my eye and another in my throat. Why the title of the entry? Its from the theme from the film M*A*S*H, where I got the title for my novella PAIN GRIN. The swords of time will pierce our skin/it doesn't hurt when it begins/but as it works its way on in/the pain grows stronger, watch it grin. I am in a fetal position, chewing on my shirt collar as I type this. Not out of vanity, afterI finish my blog entry I need to finish a story for the HELL IN THE HEARTLAND anthology. In an email I received earlier, Mike Fountain (see my links) suggested that Roger Dale Trexler put together a book of my photos and certain blog entries. The idea behind my even starting this blog, back when it was Meanwhile@Stately Wayne Manor was because Sid Williams and Rachel Drummond (again, see links), two of my personal saviours, thought that some of my emails to them warranted being seen by others. Finding out I could post photos sealed the deal. Which brings me to tonight's photo: I truly believe that I entertain people with making my veins pop out of my head because I want to get an aneurysm and die at my computer or on a bus like Ratso Rizzo in MIDNIGHT COWBOY. Thanks for putting up with me, everybody, on nights when I when I want to call it quits. Your chattel, Wayne

11 comments:

Teresa said...

I Love coming to your blog, Wayne. You are building my courage to blog what's really in my head not some nice, pretty pictures and pleasant, positve meaningless pap that might please some of the people I cross paths with in the blog-o-sphere.

Pop those veins; they are wild and I love that they reflect how you feel! No aneurisms though please.

Billy said...

AAh! Lovin' the words!

Anonymous said...

Flint or not in the picture -- and check my private email to you with regard to THAT! -- you now have been to Flint and survived your worst fear (or fondest dream) with regard to Michigan Tourism!

RK Sterling said...

Agreeing with Teresa - no aneurisms, please.

Charles Gramlich said...

We're not putting up with you. We're listening and learning.

Drizel said...

I do not have any profound advice or good words, I am a mere child. Just be ok, you have ppl that love you that I know for a fact.

James Robert Smith said...

I've never felt like killing myself. I have, however, often felt like killing others.

Lucas Pederson said...

I agree with Charles up there. We're learning. Your writing is so great that I find eyes plastered to the screen until the words are done. I wish I had thateffect on folks, but alas, I don't.
Now go kick some ass! And please, no aneurisms. You've got more writing to do.

Stewart Sternberg (half of L.P. Styles) said...

I dunno Wayne, I think good depression is like good art, so many people think they can pull it off and yet, so much depression just comes across poorly. Now...good depression...I'm talking screaming into the night as though the soul is being ripped through the forehead...that's something worth experiencing.

Have you ever been so butt-fucking low that you've called a crisis line? I know people do it, hell..I used to man one of those phones...but I've always wondered what it would be like to be the person making the call.

JR's Thumbprints said...

Gotta keep that bipolar disorder in check. We just had a guy go on a shooting rampage in the Metro Detroit area. The media keeps mentioning BPD, BPD & BPD.

Michael Fountain: Blood for Ink said...

JR, are you sure the shooting rampage didn't involve "Borderline Personality Disorder"? That's a whole different beastie from bipolar, which is a neural chemistry problem more than a personality disorder. I've known 'em all, slept with some, drank with a few and eaten the rest, and the bipolar sufferers were in spite of it all still True Blue and a LOT more trustworthy.

Wayne, you know I've been there and it's best to be gentle with yourself til it passes like a bad cold in the soul. Me, when the grinning blue devil visits, I spend too much money at the comic book store (comic book morality and never giving up is a comfort to me at such times), take hot baths, eat and drink comfort food, go to bed early, pet the animals and wait it out.

Tennesse Williams calls it "The Spook" ("... he's there with a grin that'll curdle the milk in the coffee and he'll stink like a gringo drunk in a Mexican jail in his own vomit")or "The Blue Devil" in "Night of the Iguana" (my favorite, so maybe I learned this from him):

HANNAH: I had something like your spook. I just had a different name for him. I called him the blue devil, and oh,,, we had quite a battle, quite a contest between us.

SHANNON: Which you obviously won.

HANNAH: I couldn't afford to lose. I showed him I could endue him and I made him respect my endurance.

SHANNON: How?

HANNAH: Just by, just by enduring. Endurance is something that spooks and blue devils respect.And they respect all the tricks that panicky people use to outlast and outwit their panic.