It has been almost 10 months since I last published anything here. That is something of a shock to me, given I have gone through lapses in the past, but nothing this extended. I just asked myself “why.” Literally. In the dead silence surrounding me, I spoke aloud, and my cat Daisy looked up from her habitual spot upon the foot of my bed, her eyes half closed to judge me. I get it. It’s 11PM and normally, I’m in bed and under my covers by now. But there’s something in the air tonight, this cool, early October evening and sleep is a relatively distant consideration though admittedly, my endurance for late nights is not what it used to be. I’m a far cry from the days when I and my brethren all lived in J-Town, or Oz/Ab-Oz, or State Pen, or one of the many, other places we congregated when we were younger. Now a few years away from the big 5-0 (some closer than others), we’ve managed for the most part to stay local to each other, a fact which I am eternally grateful for. Yet late night diner runs have given way to early morning runs to and from school for most of us to drop the kids off, and late afternoon runs to pick them up. Does this sadden me? A bit. But it’s not something I am upset about. It’s just life. Adulthood. The next stage in our respective evolutions on this side of the proverbial wormhole of existence.

This year has been interesting, and not always in a bad way for once. Quite the contrary, it has been perhaps the best year I’ve had in a long time. I’ve travelled both for business–I got to see Boston for the first time–and recreation–a week spent away in Mexico with my minions and a few, good friends. Long gone are the days when I lived somewhere between Indianapolis and Philadelphia, or between the train platform at Temple University and the one in Norristown, and “travel” was a day trip down the shore. And despite a rougher-than-the-2023-norm few months which have left me feeling slightly exhausted, I am still in a good place. When you deconstruct the “why” of me, not blogging for almost a year down to its component parts, the answer is surprisingly simple. Because there really hasn’t been much to blog about. I am not a travel or food blogger, nor a mom/dad blogger. I generally write from a place of anti-inspiration and anyone that has known me since I first starting penning pieces of Mental Flatulence back in the mid-90s knows this to be true. But… Brace yourselves friends. For the truth may shock you. For the first time since my life went sideways over five years ago, I am not sad. I am not bitter. I am not angry. I just AM. I exist in a place where the only angst I feel is angst of my own creation. It is not peace, nor is it contentment, for I still have my bad days, but to employ an old cliche? They are nothing to write home about. Or blog about for that matter. The mundane, routine existence I fought against for a large portion of my life is, for once, welcome. And while I still have dreams of where my life can go from here, I must admit: They are not quite as lofty as they used to be.

I’ve spent a good portion of my life over the last decade fighting against things I could not control. I will not mention those things herein because if you’ve been keeping up with the story o’ my life since the mid, 2010s you already know them. I did so because they were divergent from the course I’d assumed my life would take back in the 2000s. Yet I’ve grown to understand that life in general never follows a straight line. The only Point A that exists in life is birth, and the only Point B that exists is death. Much like a story, you go into it knowing the beginning and you anticipate the ending. Yet that anticipation often times is rose-tinted and what you had hoped for doesn’t pan out the way you outlined it. Previously, I’d belabor my mind over this to the extent that I came close, once or twice to madness. Yet railing at the almighty, wringing your hands together, gnashing your teeth and screaming “why me” is the only, sure path to going crazy, and frankly (no pun intended), that is not a luxury I can afford, nor is it one that you can afford when you have others that depend on you to keep it together. Your family. Your friends. Once you realize how many folks need your strength, your desire to do battle with the inevitable because it doesn’t fit your narrative loses its appeal, and you find yourself where I am right now: Sitting in front of my computer at 11:45PM, embracing the silence save for the sound of my cat purring in contentment as she sleeps three feet behind me. Now? Silence does not equal loneliness. It illustrates an end to my seemingly endless, internal conflict.

There remain a handful of inevitable questions. “What now” is probably the most prevalent. I know myself well enough to know that I will not be happy forever, sitting in silence as I am this night. I can already feel that itch to do more and accomplish greater things creeping back into my subconscious despite the ache in my neck from hunching over my keyboard for the last hour, and my desire to be well-rested for my 9AM call tomorrow with a prospect in the UK. It is only a matter of time before I start dreaming forward again but for now, simply existing, free of a cloying amount of internal conflict is a desirable place for your old buddy the Mad Chronicler to be.

This past weekend, I and a handful of my closest compadres went to see a production of “Evil Dead: The Musical.” You may not have heard of it. That is not surprising. I don’t think it was as well received as “Wicked” or “Hamilton” was. But it’s hysterical, especially if you grew up as a fan of the Evil Dead movies. It was a small production, but it got me to thinking, and earlier tonight, I embraced those thoughts and revisited some of my oldest Mental Flatulence. The pieces in question were composed between 1998 and 2005 and collected into a binder-bound volume in 2006 which I called “Mental Flatulence: A Collection of Essays from Beyond the Wormhole.” There is a second volume, as well–I think I called it “Mental Flatulence: The Myspace Edition (Including the Collected Couch Chronicles of 2006)”–and if I can find that one, I’ll be reading it tomorrow. But I remember thinking as I was compiling them that selected pieces would make a great, one-man or one-woman stage show. Try as I have, I’ve always failed to kick the theater out of my heart, mind and soul and now that I have two children who are as interested in it as I was then and still am, the idea of finally working on that project resonates with me. There are others, as well, that I’ve been working on and have promised to work on including the completion of HEAVEN AND ENDWORLD, my long-gestating J-Town project and others, including a one-off horror story and an idea that is bigger than anything else I’ve ever attempted. I believe the moment when I get back to work on these items will come soon, but for now, I am content to simply BE. Will I be back on this site posting more ruminations in the near future? I certainly hope so. Inspiration remains a fickle bastard/bitch for me, but when it hits it does so with the force of a speeding semi, careening down I80 from Indiana to Pennsylvania, or a SEPTA train speeding from Temple to Norristown.

I plan to be ready for it when it arrives.

Goodnight friends. Sweet dreams.

F.