Monday, March 7, 2011

Metaphor

So, uh, good day, and welcome to the second entry in my reborn personal blog. Our topic today is 'metaphor' as you may be able to tell from the title bar up there.

Originally this was going to be about the daily injections I get to give myself. I couldn't come up with a good play on the title of the Neil Young song 'The Needle and the Damage Done', which I got in my head would be an amusing way to title that post. So I abandoned the whole idea. Couldn't work out how to get away from the 'damage' bit. After all, the injections are supposed to moderate some of the neurological symptoms of MS, not damage me. Although ... Ever wonder what it would feel like to carve the muscle off your lower arm with a filet knife? Hit a nerve while injecting and YOU TOO could have this ... wonderful ... sensation.

Metaphorically, anyway. No actual carving involved.

'Metaphor' was on my mind earlier today. I was on a message board, talking about Big Thoughts. You know, the Big Thoughts you discuss at 4 AM hanging out with friends when you SHOULD be sleeping or studying or something but the darn Big Thoughts keep thudding at your skull demanding to be set free ...

No? Maybe that's just me then.

Anyway, that earlier message board discussion was about using one bad thing as an a metaphor for a seperate thing to make the point that thing 2 was itself bad as well. Overall consensus was that it was best to speak from personal experience and not use (for example) genocide  imagery.

I wholeheartedly agreed. Well, wholeheartedly in part.

See the two-ton canary in the corner? (Which is how I say 'elephant in the room'. Gotta work those creative writing skills you know!)

What if the metaphor comes from personal experience?

The obvious example for me being disability related.

Except none of the people on the board know I have a disability. It's pretty obvious when you meet me wheeling my way down the hallway or whatever. But online ... It's only words you see and most of the time those words have nothing to do with impairment or health or ability or disability. If it's not germane to the conversation I don't mention it, and 99.5% of the time it isn't.

But then there's that .5% when it is relevant.

So I get to do the 'big reveal'. Which isn't that big to me. I live with a disability. It is what it is. That's all. Like Popeye. It is what it is and that's all that it is.

Although I don't usually reference Popeye. 'You play the hand you're dealt' is what I say. Nice metaphor. True, bit of a cliche, but it's one I've used for 4 or so years.

But today something new happened. As I typed the phrase guess what popped in to my thoughts unbidden and unwanted? 'The Gambler'. The 80s pop-country Kenny Rogers tune.

Dang it.

"You gotta know when to hold 'em" Hopefully one chorus and this stupid song will get outta my head. "Know when to fold 'em" Love to discard this song, Mr. Imaginary Kenny Rogers. Really. "Know when to walk away" Uh ... ain't happening Kenny. I'm not down with the whole ambulatory scene any more. "Know when to run" STILL AIN'T GONNA HAPPEN!!

Then I thought (once Kenny was done) ... I have a rail in my tub so I don't fall down and crack open my skull ... bars around my toilet, also for skull-cracking-open-avoidence ... why not adapted imaginary pop-country tunage? "Know when to wheel away ..." Yeah I kinda like that. "Know when to wheel away really really fast because a big guy with a handlebar mustache wants to kick your butt ..." OK, last bit needs some work.

And then I spent the next half hour giggling to myself.

So that's today's blog post. It has all the elements a piece of writing should have, except I skimp on the ... what's it called? The bit after the climax. The rolling over and falling asleep. Except in literary terms.

Oh yeah. Resolution. That's it.

So this kind of ends up being like the stories kids write in elementary school. You know. They go at the start something happened.
Then something else.
Then another thing.
Then
the end.