Where I plagiarize from my former self...

Well...I saw the movie The Two Towers and now I am speechless and can't think of what to write in my blog...

I thought: I know! I'll plagiarize from my past self!

I went looking for things I'd written. Most have been ditched somewhere down the road but I found this cache of story fragments. When did I write these? Why did I write them? I truly have no idea.

It was interesting because I perhaps have figured out the answer to a perplexing question. I have never understood why people want to publish anything. It is the writing that is the point so why bother with all the rest of the trouble? I think I did figure this out, though. Publishing might provide you with three things (1) you can find what you wrote later (2) you are motivated to finish it (3) you might be inclined to write more later. Blogging certainly has this effect. The sense of obligation--however deluded--motivates me. Strangely, it motivates me to ignore the things I genuinely am obligated to do.

You may think people publish for: Praise! Acclaim! Recognition! What about those? I have some thoughts on that matter I may bore my non-existent visitors with later but I simply think that this would never be the least bit compelling. For I would assume that anyone else's opinion would either be uninformed or damaging in some way. Praise usually has some content--If it was just 'You are great! You are perfection itselfl!' that would be nice, of course. But if they went on to tell you why you'd have to realize they didn't understand and their view is entirely unfounded. So I can't imagine finishing anything and then trying to put it in any format except this relatively private one.

And most likely they would only tell you how bad you suck. Strangely, you will know they are right and yet this will traumatize you for years. Why is it that when people tell you all the negative things you know are true about yourself it is so very, very disturbing?

I don't know but I suppose it shows you might have been secretly hoping you were wrong.

This is me speechless. Speechless I say much more than most people do on their blog. I say more than some people do in a month on their blog. I suppose I must admit it is next to impossible to render me speechless.

Good Lord...I could even go on and on about the movie but it was a holy experience and I believe one should not bla bla about the holy.

Now that I wrote all this I have done my duty for the day and needn't go on and show the plagiarism...However, I think I will. I tried to pick only the funniest one although I am surprised to see that I don't seem to be able to write 'straight.' There is nothing autobiographical about this. Where did it come from?

My Mom

I mean one thing about you, you’re so normal, you would never get my mom. My mom is
so weird, she’s so weird, she’s not even a mom. I can’t even call her ‘mom’ sometimes, I cannot even conceptualize her as a mom. This woman--no one can look at her and think ‘mom’ in my opinion. To think that, one would have to be confused about what the word ‘mom’ really means.
O.K., I know I’m exaggerating, because she gave birth to me and everything, so of course, that’s all you have to do to be a mother. So biologically, she’s a mother. I think. She has stretch marks, there’s the evidence. She even did that twice--had kids. Astonishing, isn’t it? She had my brother. She had me. When I think of being a baby, a little kid what do I remember about my mom? Her ice tinkling. Her crystal ice. Her ice for her scotch tinkling, tinkling. [clink] I remember whenever I
had a glass for years and years I would always rattle the ice. I thought that’s what everyone does. You drink, you make the right noise. Of course now I can’t stand the sound of ice tinkling. Regular ice isn’t so bad, the ice you make in the freezer. That makes a kind of low noise. I don’t use that ice either. But the tinkling that crystal ice makes, the store bought kind. In a glass. I
have only plastic cups. I never drink drinks with ice unless it’s really hot and never the store
bought ice, only the home-made kind.
My mom swam in a pool a few times. I saw her. And she did not get her hair wet. She really swam with her whole head out of the water. Only the very, very ends at the back of her head got wet. She swam with all her jewelry. Her makeup, all of that. Like the water would melt her face. This was at some rich guys house when we were kids, my brother and me. We had
fun in this guy’s pool, doing cannonballs and stuff. All I remember about this guy was he was fat, he was a psychiatrist, he had a brown beard he had long hair and was partially bald at the same time. He tried to ask me a lot of questions. When I fell asleep on his couch because it was late, his kids came in and took off my bathing suit bottom. I screamed for my mom, but she didn’t
hear me. So I just grabbed a towel from the bathroom and sat up all night waiting for my mom to come down and get me. I fell asleep and I don’t remember what happened after that. I heard people talking, but I can’t remember the next morning. I sure do remember waking up with no bathing suit bottom. This must’ve been the only guy my mother dated and did not marry. I
would’ve remembered him better if she’d married him.