A thick, sludgy funk has enveloped my mind of late and reduced my thoughts to the pace of an old man’s nose-wiping ritual.  I offer unto your critical eyes the fact that I haven’t touched this love-child of mine in 21 days despite having the absolute best of intentions to continue the conversation, yet without the mental warehouse to back up the effort.

I find myself of late needing to break loose from a great deal of things.

Sticky things.   The kind that hang on for dear life with those creepy-ass suction cups that octopuses (octopussies? octopussai?) have.

Mind – As mentioned above, this gunky crap that seems to have settled on me leaves me unreceptive to truly taxing or inspirational thought; things that might actually make good, deep sense fall easily away and I’m reduced to finding the Kardashians to be mentally scintillating.    (This is nearly reaching a level of simply sticking a hot poker into my ear to prevent further damage; I assure you, I’ve considered.)   Just hammering out this prose is going to wind me and cause stars to swirl overhead.

Body — More and more am I being impressed upon that this bulk of a beast is causing issues and I am best to move it along to a different stage of existence.    For that matter, I’ve done rather well of late in establishing a good cardio routine and weight lifting series; the subject at hand has been known to grunt 80lbs up and down in the air like he knows what he’s doing with it (on occasion) and has so far avoided damaging the furniture; this all being said, I still feel like I am waylaid in a tarpit full of molasses and buxom young cheerleaders during a severe blonde drought.

I know I can break free and actually shed this coat, the question is simply a matter of how.     Women, I hear, find there to be a corporate/governmental glass ceiling, but mine’s made out of sheets of subcutaneous fat.     It doesn’t shatter well without the careful application of an M80.

Maybe I need one of those rice, spring water, and cod liver oil cleanses or something.   Are they back in fashion now?

Profession — Computer programming has forever been a matter of being in the correct mindset, of obtaining that particular zen-state of being where code flows from one’s mind directly into the fingertips and out across history, forever captured like a beautiful painting is frozen in pigment blotches.   You can force a painter to do his art, of course, but the true inspiration comes from within, not without.

I glimpsed this on Sunday for awhile, feeling that creep down my arms and light me on fire as the world slowly faded and I became one with the machine and the thought.    Past that, the pursuit has been unclear again this month and I can only hope for a little light to suddenly turn on — or enough caffeine to artificially induce me.

The Inescapable Truth — I’m stuck, I guess…not really spinning my wheels, but at the same time, I’m not really headed anywhere, either.   And eating at McDonald’s all the time vs. just not eating…well, sometimes it’s not always better, ya know?

The lifelines I cling to right now are my lovely wife, my adorable and entertaining son, my never-dull job, and all of you people out there, doing the things I wished I was, writing the blog posts I know I can if I only I could clear this spiderweb, and hammering the lines with all sorts of funny quips, inspirational quotes, profound emotions, and memorable times.   I cling to you all, I hope you know that.    Purely platonic, of course, although I’ve been known to glance at a boob from time to time.

In truth, we can’t go anywhere but onwards, right?