The Rites of Summer

[flemmings]

Some forgotten summer in the last decade I'd regularly sit at my computer and smell hamburgers barbecuing in the back yards beyond the window, and then feel compelled to bicycle over to the one restaurant that had reasonably priced hamburgers-- and glacier-slow service-- and have one myself. (Somehow I never realized that Pauper's across the street had them too; I assumed my choice was between Incredibly Slow Restaurant and By the Way's organic burgers with a schmeer of hummous on them, quote-unquote.) Not that any restaurant gives me the pickle relish I really want, which is why I want barbecued hamburgers, not restaurant ones.

Am smelling hamburgers now. But the whirligigs of time allow me no more than a bulgogi's serving of beef, which might come to a third of a burger, and no fries at all. Sic transit etc. Am a little sad about that. The By the Way burger was what I ate the evening of Sept 11, as a means of asserting to myself that fundamental things in my universe were still the same. However. What we left them, trains inherit/ Trains go on and we grow old.

31_days' August prompts are about Wanderlust. I should be able to write something about those, given that my putative main fandom is four guys in a jeep and my most recent one is a mushishi who keeps moving around.

Just, I feel distanced from my fandoms these days, and from writing in general. I no longer tell myself stories at night going to sleep, and in the morning when I wake up I'm awake and up, which has never happened before. I'd blame hormones and the lack of them, except I used to tell me stories in childhood long before the hormones kicked in. (Of course the hormones were an incredible incentive to tell myself more, and more detailed, stories about Somewhere Where It Was Better.) So I get up and study kanji; and think that if I'd been like this all my life maybe I'd have accomplished more. Without that seductive dream world and its fascinating puppets, one might as well work, because what else is there to do? I never understood before how people managed Ph.ds and careers; and now I see it's because they don't have stories to tell themselves.

(Lj tags are still screwed. Click on the drop-down and it erases the tag you've selected before. Assumption being you only want one tag per entry.)

Comments

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

now I see it's because they don't have stories to tell themselves. - Oh dear ... that sounds so sad *HUUGS* ...I am hoping of course it is a passing phase.

Hmmm I'm hoping you still do tell yourself some stories ... just probably not as often.

I can sort of empathise with that 'distanced from fandom, and from writing' feeling. I think I do write. Just that these days ... I am writing in posts (not of my own, but in other's postings) I'm sure if I collected all the little bits I write it'd be a sizable chunk of writing. But I think I've come to the conclusion that this is how I write now and it's ok. And of course this just might be me 'growing up' in which case my sis might eye roll and breathe "At last!"

And I do wish that I had the discipline to learn Kanji as you are doing.

Wanderlust seems like a good theme for the summer when it seems like everyone is packing off and going somewhere.

[avalonjones.livejournal.com]

I no longer tell myself stories at night going to sleep

Strangely enough, me neither. I chalk it up to getting older, and exhaustion, I guess. Not sure what else to think. Not sure I want to consider any alternatives other than that.

[incandescens]

I find my fandoms change, but I still remain attached to something.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Funnily enough this has happened to me too. I think the MBA really actually not-a-joke changed my brain chemistry. I still write steadily but it's now more just something I... do, during the day. But arguably it's more a question of being in between intense fandoms... I really haven't had the urge to write fic for my last couple, though.

[mauvecloud.livejournal.com]

but you just told one ^^' i could almost smell the hamburgers when i scanned the part outside the cut.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Thanks. ^_^ But there's a difference between reminiscing and fiction. It's the fiction part I miss.