I fly maybe once or twice a year on average, and every time I get a window seat I’m reminded that until about a hundred years ago, nobody on the planet had ever appreciated the view I get to. And it’s not even just that nobody else had seen that view, I was doing it for a damn low price… although in order to do so I am sitting in a metal tube filled with 150 other people’s farts.
As I type from this bouncy, unsteady seat-back table, I’m flying out of state (where this will be uploaded and shared after landing) for my nephew’s graduation. Nothing quite hits the “you’re an adult now” quite like realizing this person, whom you can clearly remember as a small, small baby, has about 12 years of schooling under their belt and has earned the distinction of such an accomplishment. Even though he’s taller and larger than I am now, I make sure to cement the “I’ll always be bigger than you” uncle/older brother mentality. Somebody has to.
But anyway. Why have I been so distant and not posing here lately? I don’t have any good reasons… a few reviews and previews, sure, and regular work, but outside of the working on my novel I don’t have any real excuse. I haven’t been so energetic about writing – the bunch of articles in April I pumped out kind of took some of that fire – but I have one or two pieces in various states of finishing that will go up this month here. Hopefully the time away from my regular digs will fire me up to fire up my processor for otherwise-unpaid pieces.
And this is coming for June, when I’m out of my home for roughly half the month. I’m spending at least 12 days away from my own bed between my nephew’s graduation and the week I’ll be at E3 Expo, the first week I’ll be with the fam so not as much writing time, and the week of E3 will be little BUT writing time (and meetings… SO MANY MEETINGS). The great thing about places like trains, airplanes, and sitting in the backseat of a van for a long drive – I’ll do some driving this year so it won’t be all backseat-ing – is that I can let my fingers just go across the keyboard and see what comes out. It’s a wonderful thing, having nothing else to do but write… it’s why I stay up so late and enjoy the quiet. Only in public and mostly-private transport, I have company in the quiet.
Planes and airports, for some odd reason, always make me happy. I’ve flown for both business and pleasure for tens of thousands of miles in my life, and I’ve enjoyed it almost every time. In my younger (and more formative) years I was the one who wanted to stay home and do my own thing, and while that hasn’t gone away completely I do feel the pull of the wanderlust, the need to see as much as I can see before I’m no longer seeing anything. It’s what got me visiting Las Vegas and meeting friends I’ve had for years, and what got me to Tokyo to start my professional writing career. I owe that restrained wanderlust for some of the best parts of my life.
(Which reminds me, if anybody wants to pay me to go somewhere and visit this or that, let me know. So long as I have food in my tum and a roof over my head enough of the time, I am available.)
Even though I’m financially restricted and can’t travel on a whim, even though I’ve always got some kind of writer’s anxiety and feel I need to work on something, I still feel like one of the most fortunate people in the world for what I do and who I do it with. It’s a good gig if you can get it.
So what does this mean for you, who’s reading this? It means I’ll have a few more posts for the month of June (though I don’t know how many), and coming up a buttload of additional content. Reviews and previews in the works E3 coverage through GameRevolution.com, and who knows, maybe some fiction or poetry along the way. June is going to be busy. And there will be plenty to read from yours truly.
Stand Tall, friends. And I hope your travels are smooth and beautiful.