a pg-13 post [1.5]

[prologue to part two]
thank you everyone. your impatience for the conclusion of this posting has been like peanut butter gnutella for the ego. i don't mind if you spread it thick. still, i'm no charles dickens. i doubt i can handle the stress of writing serial posts like this. ironically, i am paralyzed by your great expectations (i couldn't resist). this condition is compounded by my general ineptitude for endings. don't believe me? check my computer; the final draft of my 2003 travel essay is saved as 'dumbest ending ever.'

sorry for this detour; i know that some of you are antsy to discover beth's fate--what ghostly specter haunts the corners of her mind? will she survive her encounter with the dumpy newspaper-strewn house that andrew calls home?--i understand your anxiety, but aren't you even a little bit curious about that dumb ending?

well, this blog is about me, and i was curious, so i double-clicked the document and scrolled quickly to page eleven. here are the final two sentences:

'like the old tortoise, i finally made it. i’ve been stumbling, bumbling, teetering, and generally miss-stepping from one place to the next, but despite rick steves and in spite of myself, here i am.'

sucky, right? this mawkish attempt at a conclusion is the result of more than a year's worth of brain kneading, or, to quote myself, a year's worth of 'stumbling, bumbling, teetering, and generally miss-stepping ' my way 'from one place to the next.' that's right!--you're witnessing an interactive epiphany--maybe my travel essay is really just a heroic similie, an extended metaphor for the creative process we call writing! though i long ago left this essay for dead, perhaps this emphasis could cause a wild transformation; perhaps there is yet hope for my endings...


(i thought this picture was fitting; i'm taking a break from my story, and wheelbarrow guy is just plain taking a break.)

andrew david 'siesta' yelapa, mexico.