The Paradox of Wanting

He loved the city most at night.

Not midnight – midnight was cliché, passé; midnight was for Cinderella, and he was never leaving this ball. The fog rolled into the San Francisco bay on a gentle wind, the slightest touch of cold ruffling through his hair. The golden bridge shone on clear nights but tonight it glowed, softened by the natural blanket and cast smoldering warmth in the black.

He cast one leg out, dangling over the lip of an abandoned, rather Victorian looking house. From here, his unobstructed view could take in the massive expanse of water on three sides and the distant gleam of a delirious nightlife, choking on its own heady essence. Somewhere, always in the background, the constant hush of lapping waves beckoned, rushing in and out, in and out, like a softer version of the fault quakes. The tang of salt on the breeze tickled his nose.

A preview of something to come. And it will be something special, even if I don't know what it is yet.

I've been posting a lot, multiple times in the same day on some occasions, which I suppose just goes to show me that I never should have stopped keeping a blog - that the process of just writing about the day really was doing amazing things for my writing, even if no one was reading or encouraging or swapping ideas or criticizing. I'll probably end up double posting today because it's like 3AM here and I'll feel "due" for a new post tomorrow evening even though I'm technically getting it out of the way now. Actually, I ended up becoming so tired that I broke through the other side of exhausted and was wide awake by 4AM, which is more than enough to suddenly realize "oh hey, there's a save button." Thus, contained within is a conglomeration of time, intermingling in a dance of different pasts. Which sounds far better than "I started a new post and didn't finish." But that isn't what I came here to write about.

I talk about Bill with some frequency and if I keep linking him he's going to have to start paying me for all the free advertising =P But he's getting another link out of me because he posted this tonight last night, and absolutely ruined the hilarious little omake I had planned to write along with that preview up there. Probably could have done without the trippy video, but there's something to be said for the experience of truly wanting something for someone else.

I tease him a lot because it's amusing to watch him get flustered and because it's part of my job description as Jester to the Emperor, a responsibility I take very seriously, but I really do love the guy. He's my sounding board, part-time collaborator, sometimes editor and soon to be halfway across the country where I'll likely never see him again. I've heard him talk about leaving before and I can tell you the writing in that post isn't the half of it - the rest is all about tone and inflection and starting out windows along a moving highway and nearly driving me off the road with excessive finger pointing.

I wonder some days if the reason some states aren't flourishing is because the people like him keep leaving the places that need those types of people most.

But that's speculation on my part. The point is, I really liked the omake I had planned so I came here to complain about it being ruined because to write it now would be making light of something I'd feel terrible about making fun of later.

Unrelated:

Click to embiggen.

Because I never get tired of looking at these little stars. They're so cute <3