A something or at least an anything.

[shoelace009.livejournal.com]

I used to sit on the front porch and watch you pull in at night. Seven o'clock most often. You got off work at three but somewhere four hours lost itself most afternoons. I'd sit and watch as you threw a can into the truck bed and slammed the door shut, a collision of fiberglass with itself. Your jeans were always ripped from work, the frays covered in oil and dirt. Somehow I had become accustomed to the evening smell of Budweiser mixed with sweat, rust, and oil. It was like the lights coming on the front porch at dusk or an oven timer coming on before dinner. Some things are so regular you come to depend on them.

You would carry your cooler in and tell me you'd been really thirsty that day. I'd laugh because I didn't know better. You'd walk in the house and sometimes yelling would ensue- sometimes not. Then you would have dinner and fall asleep in your recliner. I learned early on that bringing home the bacon meant sleeping off your shame in a lazyboy.

I also learned other things. I learned that you never let your beer get cold- or even make it to the fridge for that matter. You never share the remote, especially when Scooby Doo is on. And when you leave carrying trash bags instead of a cooler of consolation for a less than satisfactory life, you don't even bother to explain it to your kid or tell him to keep his nose clean as you pass him on the porch. I learned that there has to be a point to everything you do and there is no point in being the good guy if you don't plan on being around anymore

I never expected the man who passed me on the porch, in the hallway, in the living room to be Batman. I didn't have anything expectations really. I just expected him to be something.

(no subject)

[ex-afinerom.livejournal.com]

I have a question for all you writers. How do you get past writer's block? How do you move past the... what if this sucks/my writing sucks/I'm not good enough funk? What are some tricks you use for inspiration?

Why It Doesn't Matter How Much Is in The Glass.

[shoelace009.livejournal.com]

“He doesn’t love you.”

“Shocker.”

“Then why do you bother?”

She spun around on the stool and shrugged her shoulders. Her dispassionate eyes suited her apathetic tone. “Maybe I just do.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

She looked down the bar at an old man hunkered over a whiskey sour, staring hopelessly into it like he was search for something. “It’s better than nothing, that’s what it’s supposed to mean.”

“But it isn’t significant.”

“But it isn’t nothing.”

She grabbed her messenger bag and dropped a couple bills next to an empty glass, looking back down at it. “You know why that glass is empty?”

“Because it’s not half full.”

“Exactly. Something isn’t empty or half-full because it’s missing something. It’s that way because you drank it, which is better than watching it sit there staring back at you. It doesn’t matter what it’s half of if you never drink it.”

“I see.”

“No you don’t.” She said, grabbing a tattered brown jacket. “But maybe someday you will.”

Then she sauntered freely out of the bar. But that lack of weight on her shoulders was also because she had nothing to weigh her down. I didn’t know whether to pity her or applaud her.