An end to madness

After eight days of writing, I finished the project I was working on. For those out of the loop, my brother has kindled in me an interest in writing a television pilot. When he told me that I should have a plan for what happens in the first season, I wrote up a synopsis of every episode. As I said, this took eight days.

I must say that after the first few days my passion for the project faded, so that I no longer felt like the only obsessed fan for a show that didn't exist. Don't get me wrong, I still like it. Every time I sat down at my computer to plot out a new show, the anticipation moved through me like a strong wind in an enclosed space. It was a feeling I haven't had since I first watched Joss Wheadon's "Firefly" (a show that my own concept resembles more than a little). The point is that I'm no longer sitting, staring hungrily at the screen of my computer, waiting for new words to appear as if it were someone else's hands doing the typing.

Yesterday was Ash Wednesday, as half of the supposed audience for this blog should already know. In a strange way, I find that I look forward to it every year, in that it prompts some of the bizarre behavior for which I am well known. For most people fasting means a small breakfast and lunch and a reasonable dinner. Since this is pretty similar to what I always do, I instead adopt the approach of eating nothing for about twenty-eight hours. Factoring in that dinner often ends at eight o'clock around here, that means that I begin eating once again at midnight following Ash Wednesday. The ritual, as it has become, is to go to Mexico Viejo (the best local Mexican restaurant, in my opinion) at around 11:15, take home a plate of carne asada fries, and wait for the stroke of midnight, at which point, I attack the food like the Mogwai in Gremlins. With the shrunken belly of someone who has not eaten in a full day, this is an ascetic experience in itself, the pounds of meat and french fries stretching at my insides.

This year I had to settle for Philibertos super nachos, as Mexico Viejo started, at some unrecorded point in the past, closing at ten.

What is the point of this excercise? Perhaps I seek closure to such a day. Perhaps I do it in memory of my dear brother, Gregory, who initiated the ritual and is sadly no longer with us (having moved to northern California). I think that the most likely reason is that somewhere out there, Gregory knows that I am doing it and cannot do it himself because he now lives eight hours from the border, where no one knows how to make decent mexican food.

What can I say? You only hurt the ones you love.