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Joshua Alan Doetsch

~ Author & Scrivnomancer

Joshua Alan Doetsch

Tag Archives: mom

For Mothers Day: the angst of no angst

09 Sunday May 2010

Posted by scrivnomancer in Uncategorized

≈ 8 Comments

Tags

anti-angst, horradorable, mom, mothers day

So today is Mothers Day. I should talk about my Mom, but a picture is worth a thousand words, so this might save you about five minutes of reading right off the bat. My first literary criticism:

Me n’ Mom. And that’s pretty much been the state of our relationship ever since. Not even one moment of letdown or existential angst.

Really.

Unbelievable, right?

You think I’m not being candid and opening my soul, and showing you the jagged bits that lie just past the mask of small talk–some deeply buried bit of motherly disappointment. That’s what you’re thinking.

That’s what my mother has done to me. Between this lack of a tragic past and no suitable vice to speak of, my writing’s street cred is severely damaged. So thanks a lot, Mom! I can barely wear my dark clothing with a straight face. Can’t even pen a proper suicide-cry-for-help poem.

Was it too much to ask to have you let me down just one time? One time! Could you not find it in your heart to, just once, callously put your needs before mine–to not be there just one of the times I was sick or sad? Couldn’t you have, on occasion, barraged me with pessimism, plant even a single seed of doubt in my choices, lowered my expectations in myself just to be realistic and play it safe, or at the very, very least, take a little ambient anger out on me?

No?

Human beings are allowed lapses, moments of weakness, to occasionally hurt the ones they love. It happens all the time! But you…never. Seriously. You’re freaking ridiculous. If I wrote you as a character, I’d have to add a dark spot just so people would believe it—book reviewers would be like, “This mother character is a pleasant, if naive, notion…but could never happen in the real world.”

I mean, part of growing up is realizing your elders have flaws—and then being shocked by that—and then being scared by that—and then resenting that—and finally coming full circle and accepting that, and them, on a deepening level of understanding. But you! You just bat your eyes at that whole paradigm and transcend human frailty by maintaining a nigh divine, Platonic ideal of maternal perfection.

This one time, in a grad school writing class, I’m sitting at the table, comparing story notes, when the guy next to me shares some of the cathartic emotions he deals with, when writing, and tells us all about how his parents once OK’d an antidepressant medication that turned him into a numb robot, and they couldn’t be bothered to care enough to get it switched, so he lost an entire year of is impressionable, young life in a drug-clouded, emotionally-retarded haze, and he’s never been able to fully forgive them for that.

And what did I have to say?

“Uh…this one time…I skinned my knee.”

“And?”

“It hurt…”

“And?”

“I was scared…”

“And?”

“My Mom made me feel better, and loved, and centered, and confident in the knowledge that I was special and important for years and years to come.”

It was sooooooo embarrassing!

The closest thing I have to parental angst was growing up with the knowledge that all my friends thought of you as the “hot mom”.

Every single time I put pen to paper and delve into even the slightest bit of dark prose, I can feel the eyes of the world on me–whispering, smirking, saying, “What business does he have writing this?”

This is the hell that is my life.

So thanks again, Mom. Thanks for ruining me with happiness.

God!

What?

Oh…

Love you too.

I Clubbed a Hobbit Inside Enya’s Uterus

29 Tuesday Apr 2008

Posted by scrivnomancer in Uncategorized

≈ 16 Comments

Tags

birthday, book of dead things, epic poetry, mom, pottery, skulls, strangeness in the proportion, swing state, writing

My brother was playing World of Warcraft on his computer, running through some new level/location.  I noticed the game music as I walked by.

Joshua:  Wow…that’s pretty relaxing mood music for a computer game.

Nick:  Yeah…

Joshua:  It sounds…sounds like you’re inside Enya’s womb…

Nick:  Yeah…

30 in the Mirror May be Closer Than It Appears
So I’m 29 today (yesterday…it’s late).  I don’t feel panicky that this is the last year of my 20’s…I just feel vaguely obligated to be so.  I sometimes fear stagnation, of extinguishing.  But age, in and of itself…well…my freshman year of college, in my acting class, we had a make-up section and the final project was to make ourselves geriatric and I discovered one thing about myself that day…I’m  going to be one sexy-ass old man.

Thanks for all the well wishes, everyone.

For my birthday, my Mom wove her pottery-wheel magic and whipped me up a batch of coffee mugs, drinking cups and house plant pots decorated in smiley-muerte skulls.  It’s the macabre and motherly love all swirled together in the primordial embrace of earthen ware.  It makes me smile like the skulls.

Novel Deadlines, Horror Anthologies, and Epic Teachings
The deadline for my completed draft of the White Wolf novel is now June 1st.  It’s getting close.  I still have most of it to write.  I’ll likely have to disappear, for the most part, until June.

Several Mondays ago, I met with a few Chicago writers and talked through the seeds of what will be a horror anthology…but with an interesting method and progression of story to story, author to author (I don’t know what details I can say just yet).  I’m pretty excited about it.  We’re creating a shared mythology and setting.  I’ve already read the rough draft of the first story and things are progressing from there.  Sometimes after June 1st, I’ll get started on my story.

On Friday, I visited my friend, Genenda, who teaches high school English, and talked to three of her classes about poetry, some of its history, mythology, how storytelling changes when working with a known mythos, and how epics tie into todays media.  The kids were pretty good, many of them interested, a few asking good questions about writing, and even one asked me about writing epic poetry.  To top it all off, I got to read a story and a poem and perform some improv acting at an open mic at the local coffee shop…all lubricated with three, pre-birthday double-whiskey’s and cokes.  And Sabra sang the coolest version of a Brittany Spears song that I’ve ever heard.

Book of Dead Thing Event


Another Book of Dead Things event is coming up, this Friday, May 2nd.

8:00 pm at Swing State (a hookah lounge/cafe/gallery)
19041 W. Grand Ave.
Lake Villa, IL

Some of the Twilight Tales crew (including myself) will be on hand to do some live readings from Book of Dead Things.

Medieval Chants and Secret Burrito Rituals Calm the Ghosts in My Head

16 Saturday Dec 2006

Posted by scrivnomancer in Uncategorized

≈ 10 Comments

Tags

babies, burritos, mom, vampires

Something about this holiday season and conversations with my Mom . . .

 

Conversation With My Mom (Part II):

 

Me:  What do you get a baby for Christmas?

Mom:  What?

Me:  A baby.  For Christmas?

Mom:  What kind?

Me:  . . . . . human.

Mom:  What?

Me:  My Goddaughter.

Mom:  Oh . . . OH . . . that baby.  [laughing] I thought you were saying that you wanted a baby for Christmas and were asking about that.

Me:  No.  I dozed off in Health Class but I have a pretty good idea how to make one of those.  I mean, we do have Animal Planet.

 

The novel contest is starting to drive me nuts.  Waking up, every day, for several months thinking THIS COULD BE THE DAY! and rushing to the computer can do bad things to your brain.

 

Mysterious, unaccounted for, and unexplained bags of coffee managed to get into my room, all the way from Georgia, today.  I’d explain that statement, but it sounds better cryptic.

 

My parents home has a very SLOTH effect on me and I got to figure out a way to counteract it.  Lazy is good . . . but this gets ridiculous.  There’s more to do.  Every day I should be asking myself how to sharpen my quills.

 

I often need to meditate to sort out the various cherubs and goblins in my head, but, I’m not much for routine, so there never is a set way, I always find a different ritual.  Last night’s ritual involved driving about in the AM hours, past skeleton trees with the window open, listening to medieval winter music, and eating Taco Bell.

 

I’m uploading some Rasputina music.  I can’t say all of it was acquired legally (and have you noticed that all of those “pirating music/movies is bad, don’t be a pirate” commercials have stopped?  I think it’s because a certain set of Johnny Depp movies has the high entertainment execs worried that if they liken downloading to piracy, the kids will do it all the more.  I mean, what little lad or lass with a decent bandwith doesn’t want to be a pirate?), but if I see them in person, I plan on slipping them a twenty spot.  Fuck the middle man.

I suppose if I were to do this properly . . . I ought to spike up my coke with some rum . . .

. . . that’s better.

Yo-ho-ho.

Merry Christmas.

 

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