I don't know what it was about he said to me that seemed so particularly profound, or why it stuck inside my head that night. Maybe it was because of the unfamiliar surroundings in the bar, the smoke and swirling neon lights, the darkly painted hookahs with their tentacle-like appendages, the glowing red coal like an eye emerging out of the fog. Maybe it was the clonazepam the doctor with the sleepy voice prescribed to me - and the way it made everything slow down, seem far away, how it destroyed my sense of balance and transformed my limbs into trainwrecks. Or maybe it just seemed like a strange statement to come from my brother - a 5'6, stocky ex-wrestler Nascar fan (but only for the entertaining escapades in the racing track's parking lot.) who only reads books with titles like "The Cellar Door" and "Night of Blood."
Whatever the reason - the idea to "embrace my instability," though it's probably an idea older than psychology itself, something akin to the Buddhist idea of Non-Resistance, gave me renewed hope and led me to realize exactly why I was writing this blog.
It isn't because all the freelance writing experts told me to write a blog, or because it showcases my writing abilities. (Though both are compelling reasons, especially for a female twenty-something who doesn't have the kind of social contacts or experience a more seasoned professional would.) If I simply wanted to do those two things, I could have written another blog about grammar or book reviews, the freelance life, or the frustrations of unanswered queries and book proposals. Hell, I could have just taken cute pictures of animals and paired them with snatches of witty dialogue. (Which I do actually, sort of, over at my Christian Cheese blog.)
But the purpose of this blog is to "embrace my instability", to bring light into the corners of the everyday strange, to show the weird and the idiosyncratic that follow us throughout life, those unknown and wondrous worlds that sprout up out of the dark. Because the anomalous is interesting, and because these often overlooked places can bring a fresh perspective to the schema of human activity.
Yes, I am a writer and I spend most of my time writing or thinking about writing, so there will be some blog posts covering this topic. But I also wish to write about mental disorders, overlooked parts of history, alternative philosophies, strange speculations, living on just this side of socially acceptable, preparation for the zombie apocalypse, and interviews with vampires.
Okay, there may be a book review on "Night of Blood," but I'll try to keep it brief.
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