It’s been a little over a week since I’ve learned the news that Nicky has passed away. She was gorgeous, kind, full of warmth and wit, and devastatingly funny. She was one of two writers who updated and maintained a humor blog called We Work For Cheese. Nicky was my friend. I miss her dearly.
This is a conversation about Ben.
“Jesus, what motivates somebody to shoot himself in the head?”
“I suppose some people’s lives just suffer a deficit of meaning.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Exactly.”
“I’m about to shoot myself in the head if you keep that shit up.”
30 Minus 2 Days of Writing (2014)
Day 5: “The empty bottle”
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I was struggling with today’s writing prompt, so I decided to mine my old writing journal for something worthwhile. I came across something that I had drunkenly jotted down nearly ten years ago back when I was kid in my early twenties. I wrote it when I was at a party at a friend’s house where there were lots of people, plenty of beer, three guitars, and a joyful consensus of enthusiasm for group singing. I tend to get sentimental when I drink — and during those moments of shared joy, something moved me to commemorate the moment in the only way I knew how to.
30 Minus 2 Days of Writing (2014)
Day 1: “Gouda”
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This is Day 1 of the new “30 Minus 2 Days of Writing” challenge for FY14. The first writing prompt is Gouda. Frankly, this prompt annoyed me, because what the hell can you do with “Gouda”? Well, I figured something out in the end.
On September 21, 2013, I married Diana, the love of my life. Thank you so much to everybody who could be in attendance that night. And even if you couldn’t be there, thank you just the same for your support and well wishes. My one regret of the night is that I didn’t get a…
30 Minus 2 Days of Writing
Day 27: “And That’s Why I Got Drunk”
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We raise our glasses to the inexhaustible variety of life, to all of those separate moments of sameness wrought with stagnancy, or trifling human catastrophe — to those tentative steps towards hopeful beginnings, or in deference to sadder times marked with the bitterness of inevitable ends. We toast to friends both new and old, to the promise or passing of lovers, to mothers both living and long since lost.
30 Minus 2 Days of Writing
Day 9: “15 minutes”
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They say the course of an entire lifetime can change in the span of fifteen minutes. During that final moment of violence in Ben’s unremarkable life, I imagine he required no longer than just a few seconds to take his aim and fire. I don’t really know for sure, because I wasn’t there. I suspect it had been a very long time since anybody had come around to check on Ben.
30 Minus 2 Days of Writing
Day 7: “Texting”
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I was tempted to repost my Mirror Universe entries for today’s “Texting” prompt, but then I remembered that I’ve been sitting on a gem of a text messaging story for over three years now.
Just in case you needed a reminder: I’m kind of a sarcastic bastard. So long, 2012. It’s been real.
Life is a seamless collection of hellos and goodbyes. They stitch together the totality of our days, and they have a way of tearing us apart until nothing remains but memories, and the hollow sting of lingering regret. The start of each new day brings the promise of a thousand hellos — thousands of first…