Okay!
I might be back.
I’ve spent the last three months having some issues with depression, making it difficult for me to write to you, or even to myself, let alone get to work and do a good job there.
Of course there are stories from work. Of course there are. If you can't do a good job, at least get some good stories.
But here’s a story from Charles Dickens. I’ve determined that, with a bit more work, I could be Charles Dickens.
Um, a bit more work and a penis.
I’ve been reading Great Expectations. It’s funny. And sometimes I can hear myself talking the way he writes. I wish we were friends. I think we’d laugh ourselves silly. And cry every now and then. But I found this little bit about Pip getting stuck in a situation that I might get myself stuck in. Such nice people, Pip and I are. We assume other people will have regard for our time and effort. Aren’t we nice?
But we’re foolish, too. So this guy, Mr. Wopsle, he decides that young Pip will be a good little prop to act out this sad, sad story of a hanging. So sad. But poor Pip is stuck being made miserable. He’s a marionette at the mercy of the incredibly irritating oaf pulling the strings.
Here’s Charlie D. You’ll love it. Pretend I’m there with him and reading it to you. Oooooo. It’s fun!
As I was loitering along the High Street, looking in disconsolately
at the shop windows, and thinking what I would buy if I were a
gentleman, who should come out of the bookshop but Mr. Wopsle. Mr.
Wopsle had in his hand the affecting tragedy of George Barnwell, in
which he had that moment invested sixpence, with the view of
heaping every word of it on the head of Pumblechook, with whom he
was going to drink tea. No sooner did he see me, than he appeared
to consider that a special Providence had put a 'prentice in his
way to be read at; and he laid hold of me, and insisted on my
accompanying him to the Pumblechookian parlor. As I knew it would
be miserable at home, and as the nights were dark and the way was
dreary, and almost any companionship on the road was better than
none, I made no great resistance; consequently, we turned into
Pumblechook's just as the street and the shops were lighting up.
As I never assisted at any other representation of George Barnwell,
I don't know how long it may usually take; but I know very well
that it took until half-past nine o' clock that night, and that
when Mr. Wopsle got into Newgate, I thought he never would go to the
scaffold, he became so much slower than at any former period of his
disgraceful career. I thought it a little too much that he should
complain of being cut short in his flower after all, as if he had
not been running to seed, leaf after leaf, ever since his course
began. This, however, was a mere question of length and
wearisomeness. What stung me, was the identification of the whole
affair with my unoffending self. When Barnwell began to go wrong, I
declare that I felt positively apologetic, Pumblechook's indignant
stare so taxed me with it. Wopsle, too, took pains to present me in
the worst light. At once ferocious and maudlin, I was made to
murder my uncle with no extenuating circumstances whatever;
Millwood put me down in argument, on every occasion; it became
sheer monomania in my master's daughter to care a button for me;
and all I can say for my gasping and procrastinating conduct on the
fatal morning, is, that it was worthy of the general feebleness of
my character. Even after I was happily hanged and Wopsle had closed
the book, Pumblechook sat staring at me, and shaking his head, and
saying, "Take warning, boy, take warning!" as if it were a
well-known fact that I contemplated murdering a near relation,
provided I could only induce one to have the weakness to become my
benefactor.