I need Pirhana shoes...

... to use on the Real World.

The Real World can kiss my ass. I keep trying to reconcile my own life with it, and it won’t cooperate. It’s not like I haven’t put out my hand in friendship, said to it, “Okay, let’s you and me reach an understanding—I’ll do my best to not ignore you if you stop messing with me,” but you know, that just ain’t good enough for Real World. It keeps rearing up whenever I need it to chill for a few hours so I can get the important stuff done.

By “important stuff” I of course mean writing. And by “Real World” I mean appointments, phone calls, digging myself out of one financial crisis after another, etc. You know, stuff.

Used to be, I ignored the Real World entirely. Just acted as if it didn’t even exist. That was a bad call on my part, because after years of being ignored Real World decided enough was enough and laid the hammer down on me. Found myself wrenched away from my fairly comfortable existence and into a sinkhole of misery—sleeping in my car, freezing in the winter, not knowing where the next meal was coming from, all the time dodging like crazy all the people and institutions who needed money from me.

All stuff that could’ve been avoided if I hadn’t ignored Real World to being with.
So, after the long crisis was over and most of the pieces were picked up again (some pieces were never picked up; you can’t go through something like that and expect all the pieces to still be there, waiting for you), I vowed to find time for the Real World, just so it wouldn’t beat the shit out of me again.

But is the Real World thankful? Is it, fuck. Still steals time from me enough that I’ve become extremely jealous of the time I have, to the point really where it's a bit pathological.

I suspect this isn’t gonna change. My first novel, The Bastard Hand, is coming out in about twelve days (the first day of Spring, yo!), but if I’d been expecting Real World to say “Wow, you’re a published writer, maybe I should cut you some slack and let you do what you’re good at doing,” well… I’m familiar enough by now with the devious ways of Real World that I’m not gonna fool myself on that one.

Still, it beats sleeping in the car on a cold winter’s night.