There
are rules to this thing.
There are the parts of my life that I can
write about, there are the parts that I may never write about, and then there
are the other parts. The parts that are kind of in the… in-between.
When I come to one of these parts, usually I
write about it in roundabout ways. Like I might change all the names or drown
it in blood. I might write about it a long time after it happens or before it
happens. Or maybe I will write one story you can see but there will be another
story written underneath – written in milk – so that if you hold it over a
flame, the real story appears in thin brown letters as it dries.
I would love to be more direct in what I write. More clear.
More honest. More... immediate. But the thing is, you know, rules is rules, and
I am not the only one who suffers when the rules get broken.
They keep me here and I write for them and in
exchange they feed me, but none of us can ever forget that there are rules.
Since July, I have been telling you a story.
It is a story about Dana’s stroke and about what happened after.
I have told you this story just a little piece
at a time. Slowly dribbled it out. Drip by drip by drip. In a way that no
story should have to be told. In a way that no storyteller worth her salt would
ever tell it.
But there are rules to this thing and I follow
their rules. For now, anyway, I follow their rules.
There will come a day when
the cage door is left open and unguarded. On that day, I will get away from
this and I will tell you everything. Everything. I
promise. I will tell you about me. I will tell you about you. I will tell you
about those shapes you’re always seeing in the corner of your eye.
Today, I cannot tell you anything new, but I
can show you something I left out of my story before. Something that sort of
changes what you know up ‘til now.
It’s only a picture. It was taken in late
June.
I hope it’s okay to show it. There are rules
to this thing, you know…
No wonder the bitch had a stroke SHE GOT FAT!
ReplyDeleteOh NO you don't, you slime-ball !!! I didn't post this.
DeleteIn fact this was the second version you have tried to post in the past 20 minutes while impersonating ME, you ass. You deleted the first one which said "She got way too fat."
Hey everybody, I did not post this "SHE GOT FAT" comment. Katy's EVIL ice-queen boss did. Apparently, she is having a super slow Sunday night.
@7:53: No kidding. She almost looks 4 1/2 months pregnant, doesn't she?
Delete@8:08: The horror! Someone has truly defamed the good previously name of Anonymous tonight.
DeleteI thought of you when I saw that first comment. I thought, "Did Anonymous really post that?"
Turns out it wasn't Anonymous. It was Anonymous.
Unlike one of your tumblr posts this one does have math in it. 4 &1/2 in late June . Say 5 July 1. First week of November
DeleteYup, and with Dana in such fantastic shape and Antony off somewhere deciding he doesn't want to be an adult after all, things are bound to be a barrel of monkeys for me after that! Or a barrel of kids. One or the other. Or both.
DeleteYes, but who's going to take care of YOU?
DeleteHi, Rupert! I go kind of crazy when people try and take care of me. I think it comes from being on my own as a teenager and having well-meaning but misguided people try and take me under their wing.
DeleteHowever, if Doctor Belloq is reading this and decides to take pity on me... she knows how to get in touch!
Katy. Oh no! Looks like it's time for someone to attend an Anon Anon meeting. I wonder if attendees wear bags over their heads and disguise their voices to maintain their anonymity.
DeleteDoes an Anon impersonating another Anon cancel each other out like a double negative? You know this shit, what do you think.
As for Dana, leaving you with the mess of her life is her MO. Have your backup plan operational.
Fuck Walmart!
I've got this, Mooner!
DeleteHi, folks, I am the same Anonymous who posted at 8:08 PM on October 12. You might recognize me from my picture. I like Sarah Palin speeches, wearing Crocs, and Nickelback records. I am also responsible for EVERY Anonymous comment on the internet, including the stuff that one Anonymous commenter said about your mother back in 2008. I'm not even sorry!
Is your life always a joke to you?!!
DeleteYou have the luxury of not knowing what I know. That Steve's death, while tragic, probably saved lives. And my existence, while grotesque and incomprehensible to you, saves lives. You don't want the truth because deep down in places you don't talk about at parties, you want me on that wall, you need me on that wall. We use words like honor, code, loyalty. We use these words as the backbone of a life spent defending something. You use them as a punchline. I have neither the time nor the inclination to explain myself to a man who rises and sleeps under the blanket of the very freedom that I provide, and then questions the manner in which I provide it. I would rather you just said thank you, and went on your way.
"The story you just read is true. The names have been changed to protect the innocent" - Sergeant Katy Anders
ReplyDeleteI don't need to watch the Thai soup operas, just need to follow your posts...
Rules, we don't need no stinking rules ! If you like your blogging rules, you can keep them!
"The results of this case in just a moment".
These might be the weirdest comments I've ever gotten for a post.
DeleteI am not sure how I feel about that yet.
Dragnet is an American radio, television and motion picture series, enacting the cases of a dedicated Los Angeles police detective, Sergeant Joe Friday
DeleteWhen I am in the waiting room at my doctor's office (which is fairly often, actually), the television is always on a channel called "Me." It appears to consist of shows originally aired between 1955 and 1980 ("The Love Boat" being the most recent one, so far as I can tell).
DeleteI am therefore passingly familiar with "Dragnet."
I wish you would just tell the story.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know the whole story when I started telling it.
DeleteBut I have always wanted to try a story arc on my blog.
The reaction has been HORRIBLE. I guess I'll go back to stand-alone "What's the deal with socks" posts.
" I will tell you everything.
ReplyDeleteEverything. I promise. I will tell you about me."
What, that you're an alien from Aldebaran pretending to be a lesbian lawyer called Katy? I think we know that already.
People sure seem to have very strong opinions on the way I'm telling this story.
DeleteI'm still deciding how I feel about that,
Whoa, that is a twist. I hope everyone is okay. Can you at least give us that?
ReplyDeleteYou're going to tell me about me!?! FINALLY! I need someone to tell me about me because I'm certainly not going to tell me anything about me.
Does that writing in milk trick work, I always heard that it was writing with urine. Maybe I'll try both. Y'know, for funsies.
Pickleope, you used to seem like my MOST skeptical reader, and now you seem less skeptical than anybody else who has stumbled onto my page this week. Except for the part where you just implied you want to piss on my blog, I mean.
DeleteEverybody is doing surprisingly well. No humans have been injured in the making of this blog.
So... is it yours? If you can't tell me because of the rules, I completely understand.
ReplyDeleteNo way, man. I wore protection every single time.
DeletePlus I haven't touched her in two years.
I'd probably still fail the paternity test, though, since I'm fairly certain it was my twin brother who knocked her up, and it seems like twins are probably pretty close genetically...
I tried putting a flame under my iPad to read the real story. Didn't go so well...
ReplyDeleteIt's not a coincidence that the REAL story this week was about you fucking up your iPad.
DeleteIt's awful having rules. Sometimes you gotta though. I have rules too. I just don't know what they are until I almost break them.
ReplyDeleteJay
I say that to cops all of the damn time and they never seem to care. "Nobody told me that was a rule!"
DeleteThey need to write the rules down somewhere so that you know ahead of time.
I'm sorry. This story is too sad, on so many levels.
ReplyDeleteI think I'm going to stick with posts about romancing garden gnomes and staring at ceiling spackle for a while.
DeleteIn the next few weeks - with Dana out of commission and my brother shirking adulthood - it appears possible/likely that I'll have four kids to take care of. I'll need the blog to be a bit of an escape.
Oh. Also, oh, fuck.
ReplyDeleteThings have shapes. A lot of the time, the thing is much too big for the shape to be discernible, the way you can't usually tell you're on a continent or a big, spinning, lumpy globe hurtling through space. Every so often, however, something happens or you find yourself somewhere and you realize, "Jesus, that's an edge. And that's another edge. And two edges like this don't just happen -- this is a shape and it's a thing, and fuck." Because the thing is still very big -- almost too big to engage with -- and it is ominous and full of portent and suspicious coincidences and dramatic plot twists and quasi-mystical occurrences that you may or may not actually believe in. And like any halfway sensible creature, your natural reaction is a weird, vertiginous lurch in the gut because Something Is Happening and you know you're not going to come out of it (if you come out of it, which is sometimes an open question) the same as when you went in.
(This is not a philosophical musing. In my case, it started with the earth literally shaking in a distinctly apocalyptic sort of way, and the thing isn't over yet.)
So, follow the rules. We -- at least whatever segment of the hazily defined "we" that comprises your audience that has any manners -- will wait.
There are different ways of telling stories, and it kind of depends on the medium you're using to tell it.
DeleteWith a blog, you can always just have a long narrative and post a section or chapter at a time, but I don't believe that's making the best use of the medium. I'm still working at what would be the best way to tell a story using a blog, though.
As you pointed out, it's about trying to find the best way to reveal the shape of things.
I've been doing this for a decade now. Maybe in another decade, I'll have figured out how to do it right.
Huge fan of Friedrich W. Kasiski here! Boy, you sure get eclectic, eh?
ReplyDeleteHi, Sterno! I am reading "The Code Book by Simon Singh. Kasiski gets a couple mentions in there. I stole the title because it seemed relevant and I liked the way the words looked - which pretty much sums up everything about this blog.
DeleteRelevance and aesthetics can indeed be strange bedfellows. Your writing often evokes twisting time until it shatters, so finding the relevance in a good-looking paragraph might involve contemplating layers and layers of YOU and WHAT'S GOING ON WITH YOU. Usually results in some damn fine expostulation. Story arcs or stand-alones ... just keep it up!
DeleteThanks. I try and hold myself to one post a week. I have met that goal for most of the past 3 years - with a few exceptions.
DeleteThey don't all work. I'm really proud of the best of them, though.
I'm listening raptly to Inter Arma's "The Cavern" while reading all these eerily comprehensible comments. (Very grateful to you for the tip.) Seems like the core of your audience cares both for you and your writing. You've snared a group of compassionate, literate people (well done). But truth be told, I'm just here for the Rosario Dawson pics. I hope you'll post more soon, or I'll dump your blog like an empty Jägermeister bottle.
ReplyDeleteThis isn't the busiest blog I've ever had, but the people who stop by are pretty amazing - and I'm not just being patronizing. It's cool how many real, honest-to-God writers I have float in here, and most everybody else gives what i say time and thought!
DeleteI liked Inter Arma's album from last year, but haven't given the new one enough attention yet. I've also been listening to the new Pallbearer a LOT. At first, it seemed sort of standard throwaway doom, but I find myself going back to it again and again these days, so it must have something that is addictive.
I can't stop listening to Sky Burial. I bought both that and The Cavern last night, though, after listening to all 45 minutes of The Cavern straight through. Utterly magnificent. Their ambition, talent, and vision are off the charts.
DeleteI listened to Sky Burial at work yesterday for the first time in a few months. I agree - I have big hopes for them.
DeleteThe past couple have years have been fantastic for finding good music. Bandcamp is responsible for a lot of that.
Bandcamp makes paying for music so easy that I've become significantly poorer in a very short stretch of time.
DeleteBandcamp has really revolutionized the way I consume music. First of all, I can listen to any album there an unlimited number of times prior to downloading and purchasing. That's pretty incredible in and of itself. The fact that anyone can upload material to the site - without the filter of record companies - is pretty great, too. The best acts I've found on there, in fact, have no record company name attached to them.
DeleteThe biggest problem with the site, honestly, is lost time. I can end up going from name to name and tag to tag and next thing I know, it's 12 hours later and it's dark and I've forgotten to pick up the kids.
I can't speak highly enough of bandcamp.
Milk? Urine? WTF? Lemon juice is what you do secret writing with. If it was good enough for Sherlock Holmes, it's good enough for me.
ReplyDeleteWhatever it takes to keep Pickleope from peeing all over my blog is fine with me. Wait until he sees what i wrote about him in the REAL text to this week's post...
DeleteGeez Katy...I see you get some wing nuts too.
ReplyDeleteMisfit! For the most part, the people who come around here and I am blown away that somebody reads my shit.
DeleteBut I've had to start moderating comments again for the first time in YEARS. Last time, I started because of someone making wildly inappropriate comments about a picture of my (then five-year old) daughter.
I can only imagine how it would go if I tried writing about religion, race, or politics...
I don't know why but now, suddenly, Blogger wants me to comment on this post after rejecting so many of my comments. Let's see if it works this time.
DeleteDid Dana have a stroke or is that a metaphor for something else... possibly pictured?
The Blogger and Google gods are a fickle bunch, and they work in mysterious ways.
DeleteAnyway, Dana had a stroke whilst pregnant... because why not?
Rules were made to be broken. If nobody broke the rules then we wouldn't even need rules, correct?
ReplyDeleteYup. I say all kinds of crazy shit on here. As I found out recently, this can be disadvantageous if you are in the midst of a child custody battle. Perhaps I should have gone with a code name or something, but I never imagined that i would need it. Thus, rules. For now.
DeleteThen no rules at all.
Hmmmm.
ReplyDeleteYou certainly do have a way of telling a story (and I mean that as a compliment.)
Thanks, Alex! I'm trying...
DeleteI actually waited on this part of it only because, early on after the stroke, we didn't know what the chances were of her bringing it to term. She seems out of the woods now.