Vice

The fact that I don't smoke, and rarely drink, has little to do with morality or religion. It's simply the fact that I'm too cheap. Otherwise, I'd probably be an avid smoker, and I've always enjoyed those vodka fruity girlish drinks. I even love drugs, though the addictive quality of narcotics is as much a downside as the financial stress of procuring them. Having now partaken of a delicious range of narcotics via back injury, child birth and hospitalizing migraine, I can say that I truly, deeply love drugs, too. But I can't afford 'em, so I'm not even gong to start.

No, my drug of choice is Words. Words are free. Some would say they're cheap, but that's because they haven't been to the Public Library lately. There are hundred's of thousands, nay, millions of them, neatly categorized and stacked in alphabetical order for my ease and perusal. And lyrics, lyrics! I suck them down like jelly belly's, craning my mind's ears to suck out the different flavors. Songs upon songs to summon every frequency of feeling, each wave of memory, each spike of emotion. Don't even get me started on accents. There is never a need to say the same thing in exactly the same way twice, with the same inflection. I live for things like etymology, typography, and essays. I am an addict. With the same blind, gorging enthusiasm that I gullet them down, I puke them up again. Just ask my friends. I often find myself in a small gaggle of people, staring glassy eyed as I recite from my most recent collection. My volume is usually up too high by the time I notice their nervous glances at each other. I quickly outpace their own comments, filling in imaginary gaps in conversation with my own sub plots and side commentary. I'm suddenly on a speeding train, racing forward toward...? I don't know, but these words just keep tumbling out, and I have the decided impression that I am an artist, a painter, spattering thoughts and ideas Jackson Pollock style into the cringing ears of my confused audiences, and we're all hoping that something comes of it.

After enough of these outbursts and ill balanced interactions, I remember to practice my avarice in private-hence the keyboard. It's safer this way, so I'm not accidentally holding hostages.

The irony about my obsession is that the fewer I share, the closer I'm listened to. So I'm trying to be more careful, to hoard them, to roll them over on my tongue, to hold back what I know and what I think. The plan is to sift my twinkling jewels, to posses them, instead of being possessed by them. If I can master them, my darling beauties, then when I let them out, there will be thunder claps, lightening strikes, and things will Change, Get Better, because of My Careful and Incredible Devotion to Words.