Once more unto the breach.

I cannot remember whether I write how I speak as I seem to have done neither in a long, long time, nor do I know whether now is the time to do either. Yet here I am. It's been a spell indeed since I last posted here--quite a bit longer than I had intended to be honest--but after a quick scroll through Twitter and Tumblr it seems we haven't missed much (excepting of course The Big Thing). I also cannot say that I have much to write about (excepting of course The Big Thing), but that has never stopped anyone on the internet, like, ever. So. Here goes nothing.

My thoughts these days have no order; I've been consuming seemingly infinite bits of information and they've all jumbled inside my head, weaving in and out amongst each other like the protein strands of a disassembled DNA helix. But to mix my metaphors the cream rises, and some things linger in the air, bouncing from eddy to eddy like cottonwood seeds in spring. Knitting patterns are strewn about the house in desperate answer to a basket full of half-used yarn long mired in the weeds and wailing like the baby Moses to be of use. Paradoxes, gosh, I can't stop mulling them over, time travel and hope and the Great Filter especially. (I mean, wow. Just WOW.) But mostly I've been thinking of Carrionites.

Once upon a time I had a working vocabulary. But slowly words have been slipping one by one from my memory, lost from disuse or old age or perhaps they just got sick of my company, who knows. Maybe that's why I've felt so tongue-tied lately; I'm tripping on the gaps where my words used to be. First went the writing and then the conversation, then my opinions on this or that until finally I've stopped caring what we have for dinner and when we should have our windows installed or whether my hair is washed and my cardigan matches my dress. I think I'd be terrified of this growing silence if anything scared me anymore. But nothing does so I'm not.

No matter what's been swirling about my brain the only thing anyone seems to want to discuss anymore is The Big Thing. And all I seem to be able to say is, "I don't know. They don't know. I guess we'll see." Sometimes it comes out angry and sometimes sad--most often annoyed and accusatory--but it's always the same exact words again and again, wearying me with the tide's relentless apathy towards human suffering. "You're not dying, you almost died," my boyfriend tried to remind me, but even that is bathed in optimism's rosy hues; fact is I don't know, they don't know, I guess we'll see.

And the other thing is that everyone says the exact same things, too; the same exact words from different lips thrown out unconvincingly to make them and my selves feel better about life, the universe, and everything. These last few months I've learned that there's only so many times you can read the script before it loses all meaning, or worse, before it doubles back upon itself. All this talk and not a single person seems aware of how they're making things so much worse. It's funny, we tell our children that thing about sticks and stones in one breath, but in the next the pen is mightier. It's no wonder I've shut up, really.

Oh here I go, writing about The Big Thing when I said I wouldn't. Really all I want to do is sneak off with a flask of whiskey in the dead of night, climb up some construction scaffolding to the very tippy top, and listen to Mumford & Sons on your iPhone while the city sleeps quietly below. But the list of things I can't do feels so much longer than the list of cans, and wouldn't you know it, I'm grounded.