mallorys_camera | He Stoppeth One of Three

Haven't been writing very much here besides boring, generic [Your Political Rant Goes Here] because I've been scribbling elsewhere – two short stories for my yearly Stegner application plus a kind of memoir of the past five years.

Also the scenario remains doom, gloom, hopelessness and I don't want to end up like the Ancient Mariner: Buddy. Buddy. I know you come to weddings for the open bar. Yeah, and maybe you'll score with that bridesmaid. Pussy is pussy, right? Who cares if that mole on her chin is growing its own beard? But before you go, I gotta story I wanna tell you… Huh? What the fuck, cocksucker? Who you callin' a buzzkill?

Bad times are like a prison. After a while your whole world shrinks to the stonewalls of your cell, your walk to the barred window and back again. Your life is memories: you don't want to think about anything in the present tense. When the only thing you look forward to is your dinner – or in my case (since this is only a metaphor) the television round-up: Bones on Wednesday, Survivor on Thursday, Mad Men on Sunday – then you know you've given up.

What could I have done differently?

I suppose a lot of things but when viewed from this perspective – the sweeping backwards glance – it still looks like the only way up that mountain. I mean, you know, I never had the advantages most people have, I had a lot of things against me from the start, beginning when my alcoholic father abandoned my infant self to the not so tender mercies of my apeshit insane mother. Although since he later turned out to be a child molester, perhaps this was a good thing.

Nobody's going to throw me a rope ladder.

So I've got to figure out how to get down by myself.

My white orchid started blooming again today. This, I think, is a good omen.