Got into playing around and writing fiction over the past week. Here’s part 1…

I knew about the cats from the beginning. In fact when I first was introduced to her she was talking about those damn cats. Although I wasn’t into pets myself, I had little problem with other people devoting so much of their time and money to other, non-human, living beings.

It always seemed ironic to me that no matter how little money she had, and all those times she bummed gas money off of me, that she always had money to feed the cats. That reminds me of Letterman’s old joke from when he was in Vegas, about James The Drifter who needed cab fare to get to the casino. When asked how he could afford to gamble, if he didn’t even have cab fare James responded, “oh, but I got gamblin’ money.” Hell, those damn cats probably got better birthday presents than I did.

I never meant for her to slip away, at least not this far, but I suppose distance is part of the deal when one flees across the country. I wasn’t really running away from her as much as I was running towards a new life full of unexplored possibilities. Actually I am only fooling myself now, as I was only running away from the memories. Not just the memories of us together, but the memories of my childhood as well. Twenty-one years in one place is far too long, especially when those twenty-one years encapsulated my entire lifetime.

I am twenty-two now, so it’s not like I have a lifetime of experiences to dramatically alter my perspectives on my childhood as well as our relationship and its subsequent downfall. Despite that, I have managed to reach some comfortable middle ground out here on the West coast where I can put my history in its place, step back, and view it on the grand scale for which life is supposedly intended. I never used to view life from the wide angle perspective, instead choosing to focus on life’s details, and all of the obscure fine points that together provide the whole. To use an analogy my therapist at college used, I always used the macro lens, never the wide angle. Interesting concept, but I think if the bonehead knew the slightest bit about photography she would have suggested a zoom lens so I could control the perspective.