Old Habits

Here’s something I’ve done on my blog in the past. A story in progress. You read it as I write it.

Part One

Old Habits

Is it still against the law to harbor a fugitive if you didn’t know he was a fugitive and you didn’t know he was living in your shed for three weeks?  This is the question Arthur has been asking himself since he saw Trent’s name and picture on the local evening news yesterday. Arthur hadn’t seen or spoken to Trent in nearly three years when he one day discovered him walking down the alley behind Arthur’s house.

This sudden appearance was only a momentary surprise for Arthur. It was the nature of their friendship that they would have protracted fallow periods with no contact and then Trent would suddenly show up where ever Arthur was living or Arthur would spot Trent walking through the airport as they happened to be catching different flights to different places but leaving from the same city. These coincidental airport meetings had happened on three separate occasions.

When Arthur approached him in the alley Trent initially acted surprised to see him, as though he had no idea that he was less than a block away from Arthur’s house. It took less than a minute for Trent to admit that he knew where Arthur lived. It took three drinks on Arthur’s porch furniture for Trent to reveal that he had been using Arthur’s shed as an apartment for several weeks.

Arthur said, “you know, I would have let you stay in the house like a human being. It’s no mansion, but I like to think it’s got more to offer than the place where I keep the tool box I never use.”

“I didn’t want anyone to know I was around.”
“Who am I going to talk to about the dead beat stinking up my house?”
“I figured,” said Trent, “that if you didn’t know I was here then you wouldn’t have to lie if anyone asked about me.”
“Lie? Did you do something? Are you in trouble?”
“I’m not in trouble as long as nobody knows I’m here.” A heavy wind pushed a plastic candy wrapper down the street and carried with it the smell of a fire several blocks away. It had that scent of quality wood burning, cedar probably. Someone was getting their fire-pit ready for an evening of roasting meat, drinking beer, and getting progressively louder as more and more people around them turned in for the night.
“And you don’t think,” Arthur said, “anyone would have noticed the weird bearded guy living in my shed? The beards a nice touch, by the way, certainly makes you look less suspicious.”
Trent dragged one of his large hands across his hair-covered cheek, scratching a patch of dry skin or emphasizing the fullness of his beard or both. “With this lovely high privacy fencing you’ve got I wasn’t too worried about it. Even you didn’t notice me in your backyard for almost a month, so I’m thinking your block club isn’t running the tightest neighborhood watch program.”

Opinions?

Suggestions

More to come

LW

I’m running from something

Exercise has been a really good thing for me for a long time. I landed on running several years ago after being a gym rat and it’s come to feel like home. I mostly like doing it and I like how I feel after I do it.

Plus, there’s something about me that gets great satisfaction in having something I know I want and need to do nearly everyday. I can’t stress how valuable it is to have a daily ritual that gives me something I know I can start and finish all in the same day.

But, I’ve just become aware in the last week that I’m now using running and any other exercise I do as a way to avoid other things. Lately I’ve been spending 90 to 120 minutes on my daily workouts when I used to rarely go more than 60. And I’ve been denying this change and telling her she’s crazy when my wife comments on it.

Last night I found myself into my fourth mile after 10pm after having spent an hour working out in my home gym (a pull-up bar, a folding chair, and half a dozen dumbbells) when I realized something might be up. Maybe I wasn’t just running because the resistance workout wasn’t a high enough calorie burner and because I want to keep my runners legs. Maybe I wasn’t going for a run before bed just to clear my mind and ensure that I had done at least one thing that day I didn’t find ultimately disappointing. Maybe I wasn’t running to get and keep health in my life but instead to try and avoid things that are important to me and that I deeply care about but am finding increasingly terrifying.

I quickly thought of two major things that could easily be what my excessive exercise was helping me avoid.

One: If I can work out long enough and late enough every night the wife will be asleep or nearly asleep and I won’t have to contemplate having a conversation about the surprisingly few but worryingly significant issues I don’t think are being addressed between us. If I’m just working out to be fit and take care of myself how can that be a bad thing, right. But if I’m working out so I can wait the wife out and not communicate, well that doesn’t just do harm to what is easily the most important and worthwhile relationship I’ve every been a part of, but it also taints my running. Neither of which is okay with me.

Two: I’ve lost all confidence in my ability to write anything worth a damn. Seriously, that’s it. I know I’ve been capable of writing things I’m proud of in the past. I have things I’ve written that I am excited about sharing with people live on stage. Things I know are funny and good and still have a truth for me. But I can’t seem to convince myself that I’m that same person. I no longer think I can write something good or something funny. I want to be a writer but when I think about writing, and I’m almost never not thinking about writing, I want to throw up.

I know this insecurity in one’s writing is unoriginal. And that pisses me off too.

This brings me to the purpose of this posting. I haven’t posted a blog entry since September and I didn’t think I would post another blog entry. But, I’m working on a writing project and I do want to be a writer both as my profession and as a large portion of my identity so I’m going to make myself be a writer. My fear can go frag itself. I’m going to pile crap upon crap on this blog everyday, or nearly everyday, until I recognize the writer that’s somewhere in my head hiding. And then I’m going to write some more.

I almost decided to stop running yesterday because it occured to me that my running is a way of hiding from my fear of sucking as a writer. But being fat and out of shape isn’t going to make me a writer. Writing is. So I’m going to write.

LW