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COMFORT BLOG LIKE COMFORT FOOD, BUT LESS FATTENING

February 19, 2024 by

Comfort blog? You don’t know it, but you need one.
Fortunately I write one.
But why is it comforting?
What’s more comforting than Jeff Bridges explaining the origins of life?
By his measure, I’m a nine year old.

You need a comfort blog the same as I do. We’re both tired of zippy old people telling us when life really begins.
Look, it doesn’t begin with a splurge on vacation clothes you’ll never wear again, but look good in sunny pictures.
You’ve got to take it from The Dude and wear work clothes, the kind that look like you’ve been crawling around under a car on a greasy floor.
And don’t wash your hands. Let’s abide together on this.

 

Don’t expect a comfort blog to make you not feel so all alone.
Listen, you are alone. Even the most social person is all alone.
Surround yourself with friends and family and work people? You’re still all alone.
Keep that in mind when you’re laid up with cancer and going through the chemo and radiation.
You’re alone.
Everyone gets the hell out of the radiation room when they turn on the juice. That’s how all alone you are.
Even on your best day you’re alone. Why? Because it’s your best day and sharing it would make everyone else feel less wonderful?
So you hold it in until one day this is you, and it’s not your best day:

What happens the day after?
Hopefully not a tailspin, a falling off of whatever wagon you’re on, or calling your therapist two hundred and forty-seven times.
That’s where a comfort blog comes in.
You have feelings, but not the ability to express them.
You have untapped skills waiting for action.
But you’re over thirty, I mean sixty.

 

Back In My Day? It’s Still My Day. Your’s Too

No one is saying you’re ageless, your beauty timeless, or calling you an icon for any era.
But why not say it to yourself?
There’s nothing wrong with a little pumped up self-talk.
Some days you need it more than others, like the day you wake up looking like a froggy dump.
Or worse:

This is not my monumental look, but one that says, ‘Make a decision on that hair for God’s sake.’
When you wake up looking like you slept under a bridge, take action.
Start with personal hygiene. You don’t want to spend the day in your funk, or anyone else’s.
If you’re a man of the people, like me, you need to keep up an appearance.
The great Frank Lloyd Wright always dressed to the nines because, “You never know when a client might drop in and need reassuring. I dress for them.”
So there you go. You never know who might drop in.
Remember, you only get one chance to make a first impression.

I traded my husband-adoodle look for one that’s wash and wear.
Instead of washing and drying and combing and styling and poofing and doodling my do, I’m in and out of the shower in two minutes. Dressed in five.
If I haven’t spruced up yet, and my wife asks if I’m ready to go, I can say, “I’m in the car,” and get showered and dressed before she’s near the door.
No brag, just fact. And I don’t leave the house looking like the loser from Dating Game.
Why not put that best foot forward. Even if you’re secretly a whiny jackass, you’ll still look so good that men want to be you and women want to be with you.
Isn’t that a comforting thought?
Are hygiene and appearance really that important to writers when we sit around in our undies and t-shirt all day?

 

Comfort Blog Looks At The King

There he is in all of his glory.
Maybe I’m putting too much importance on appearance?
Whatever, but this is his big break moment.
He hit one out of the park.
He drilled a long shot.
He took one over the goal line.
Stephen King wrote, then wrote some more, until one reader said let’s go.
And away they went.
Fifty years later, still going:

My advice to myself, and you can take it too, is to keep writing.
Keep laying it down, keep putting it up, stay on a writing schedule.
Things happen. Maybe they don’t happen when you want them too, but they never will if there’s no momentum.
If a writer quits writing, at least they’ll have a song to hum to themselves.
They can sing it to somebody they used to know when they were a writer:

 

Now and then I think of when we were togetherLike when you said you felt so happy you could dieTold myself that you were right for meBut felt so lonely in your companyBut that was love, and it’s an ache I still remember
You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadnessLike resignation to the end, always the endSo when we found that we could not make senseWell, you said that we would still be friendsBut I’ll admit that I was glad it was over

 

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About David Gillaspie

I am a writer. This is my blog story day by day.

Comments

  1. Debbie McRoberts says
    February 19, 2024 at 5:58 pm

    You hit it out of the ballpark. I felt you standing behind home plate, holding the bat.
    The pitch sailed perfectly, allowing you to bring it on home.
    You slid to sweet glory and I am in the crowd, standing on my feet, cheering! Yay!

    • David Gillaspie says
      February 20, 2024 at 12:40 pm

      That’s the beauty of a ‘comfort blog.’ Everybody wins.

      Check this out: https://www.audible.com/blog/10-books-where-small-towns-are-gigantic-characters

      Almost 100 years old, Winesburg, Ohio is the grandparent to many of the small town novels on this list. Specifically in its approach: individual chapters about different people in the small town who, nonetheless, cross paths.

      Anderson’s novel stands out not just for its influence, but also the power of its through-and-through “We gotta get out of this town” stories. Here writers, ministers, and doctors all harbor guilt, shame, and unfulfilled desires that find them eyeing the outer town limits and what lies beyond.

      Every English major reads Sherwood Anderson’s ‘Winesburg, Ohio’ and wonders why.

      It’s supposed to be the book that influenced how small towns are seen. I thought about it while reading the beginning of your book, ‘What’s Said In The Chair.’

      I need to read it again after seeing this:

      William Faulkner said, “Sherwood Anderson was the father of all my works — and those of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, etc. We were influenced by him. He showed us the way.” But somewhere over the years, Anderson has slipped into obscurity.
      If you haven’t read “Winesburg, Ohio,” published in 1919, the title alone might give you the impression that it’s a quaint story about the charms of small town life at the turn of the century. But quaint it is not. Most of the characters in these 22 tales feel so trapped and alienated that Anderson coined a term for them: “grotesques.” In fact, he wanted to call his linked collection “The Book of the Grotesque,” but his publisher overruled him.

      The people of Winesburg are emotionally wounded, beset by shame or regret, and include a former schoolteacher once accused of fondling young boys; a pastor who likes to hide in the darkness and watch his neighbor undress; a clerk who, after being jilted by her lover, runs naked through the streets. People have affairs; they hide histories of theft and perhaps murder; they think of killing their spouses, and they bury their savings so their husbands won’t get at them; they worry they can’t run away from their pasts or that they’ll never escape their provincial lives.

      Sounds like an old story with a lot of zip.

      https://www.chicagotribune.com/2014/03/07/all-roads-lead-to-winesburg-ohio/#

      • Debbie McRoberts says
        February 20, 2024 at 8:27 pm

        Sounds like a very interesting read. I may have to check that out.

        I often wonder what would have happened to me had I not gotten out of that unpaved one horse town. Would I have married Ronnie Shelton? The boy who always ate the Cheetos and had orange fingers..

        Would my beliefs be altered? As much fun as it was growing up there, I am so grateful I made it out. I feel I can just breathe better in the city.

        • David Gillaspie says
          February 21, 2024 at 8:37 am

          I like to read stories about ‘what if.’

          The best part of the Haircut story was the ending with the kid heading out of town on a train.

          It’s not a spoiler since the review guy said most midwestern stories at the turn of the century ended the same way.

          We didn’t have a train. My ride out was Greyhound; so was my ride back.

  2. Debbie McRoberts says
    February 21, 2024 at 12:03 pm

    A train was not an option for me either. I headed to the city in my white Ford Fiesta that I saved all summer for, working at the A&W. I saved $1,400, and went to Bend with my stepdad so he could help pick out a good car.

    The car was $1,384.00 and I had $16 for gas for the ride back to town. I cruised so proudly back and forth on Main Street all summer until my move to the city. What a great feeling. Not only freedom, but freedom from earning every cent!

    Turns out, the car was more of a country car. About a year in, it was totaled and I had to settle for a Mazda 808, that my stepdad bought for me. 4 tone brown with a black vinyl roof that blew off on my drive back to the country.

    I love hearing stories of how people came to the big city from small town life. Priceless…