Where the hell am I? That, in a nutshell, is the question on everybody's mind. Well, the mind of everybody who wrote me to ask where the hell I am.
And it's a good question. Let's look at the facts:
FACT: I posted just one blog entries in September, and two in October. While that rate of growth could lead to 78 posts next August, it probably won't.
FACT: I haven't podcasted in two months.
FACT: I haven't responded to the letters I've received asking The Question That's On Everybody's Mind Who Asks The Question, or TQTOEMWATQ as it was called in an October 19 New York Post article entitled "Distraught Internet's Plea: Come Back Carrington"
FACT: I lied about the New York Post article. It was actually October 20.
FACT: That's a lie, too.
FACT: TQTOEMWATQ is what grammarians call a "perfect spelling." That's the spelling of a thing as pronounced with a mouth full of that thing. So, TQTOEMWATQ is the word "tomato" as said with a mouth full of tomato.
FACT: TWATTHWANUFALI is the perfect spelling of "that's another lie," which is generally the sound a politician makes when he sneezes. Or speaks.
And that's the facts, Jack. What conclusion can we draw from them? Let's put on our science hats, fire up our bunsen burners, and try not to blow up the science lab. Again. Sprinkle the magnesium into the open flame, do the square root of an impressively large number, cut the red wire…no, the green wire…no, the red—
CONCLUSION: Carrington is a lazy bastard.
Our conclusion seems to fit the facts and our lab coats are not on fire, so I'd say that was a successful experiment. Four out of five dentists agree. At least four. Maybe four and a half. Okay, four dentists plus one very tiny dentist out of five would agree.
aside:
Not with that statement in particular, necessarily, but just in general. They're very agreeable, those dentists. It must be all the clown paintings. Or the gas.
end of aside
But the underlying question that's on everybody's mind is WHY has Carrington become such a lazy bastard, and perhaps more importantly what can we do about it?
E-mail clearly isn't working, although that may be because so many of you send HTML formatted e-mail and I scoff at your selfish newbie hotmailiness. Plus, there was that little "that's it, EVERYONE is going in my killfile!" incident. Overreaction is only fun when it's immeasurably disproportionate, I always say.
Unsubscribing from the podcast isn't working, because I don't give a pair of fetid dingo's kidneys about the size of my audience. Frankly, I don't like most of you and I wouldn't go to your parties if you invited me. Which you don't. But even if you did, I wouldn't go. Probably. Why don't you invite me to your parties? What did I ever do to you?
I promised myself I wouldn't cry.
Actually, I promised myself I wouldn't climb up into a bell tower with a rifle and start thinning out the neighborhood, but it amounts to the same thing. Broken promises, broken hearts. Sucking chest wounds. It'll all end in tears, I know it.
Getting my telephone number from various domain name whois listings and calling me at home to awkwardly ask why I don't produce podcasts or webcomics any more doesn't work, as two of you now know. (Hi Ron. Hi Jessica.) That ends in tears, too. Well: tears, restraining orders, denial-of-service attacks…it's all the same to me. I lump it all under audience relations, and file it under F for "file this properly later."
My F file is the biggest of them all. In fact, it's the only with with anything in it, which makes it much easier to locate stuff because I know anything I might be looking for is filed under F. I could run the government.
I should run the government.
I should run the government into the ground.
See how these thoughts get away from me? See why you shouldn't call me at home at 11 pm your time which is 2 am my time (Hi Jessica) and ask me why I don't make Movie Punks any more? You're only going to ruin it for everyone else.
So what can we do, collectively, to Stop Carrington's Laziness? My guess is: nothing. I suspect we are powerless against the might of my writer's block, my boredom of repetition, my despair over unfinished projects, my terrible dress sense.
Perhaps there are some things about me that just cannot be known. The Carrington Uncertainty Principle. It might apply to my motivations. And my responses to encouragement. And why I buy the ties I do, when I know they can't possibly match any outfit I own. But it does not apply to the perfect spelling of my name, which is CWRRNGHTNGH. (Hi Ron.) But it does seem to apply to most everything else.
So my motives are unfathomable, my actions unpredictable? Is this a lost cause? 'Cause, if so, this was a pretty damn useless blog entry, don't you think?
Although, perhaps…just perhaps…a fresh start? A do-over? A sort of witness protection program for creative wankers like me who find themselves drowning in to-do lists and to-write lists and to-podcast lists and to-film lists and to-build lists and to-program lists and to-list lists.
You know, that's just crazy enough it might work.
Call me Eddie. I'm new around here. Write a poem? Me? No, not my sort of thing. A novel? Not bloody likely. Webcomics and podcasts? Never heard of them. Make a movie? Sounds hard. Blogging? What's blogging? Oh, that sort of looks like fun…
And the circle of internet life is complete.
Stay tuned for a new podcast that not one of you will find interesting. Plus a redesign of this site to shunt the blog off to the side and refocus on a new series of Eat My Words articles more opinionated than ever. Plus maybe, just maybe mind you, I might answer some of my e-mail.
Baby steps.
