110218 so tired i should probably cry millie just got up dammit i fucking hate mornings during the school year nothing original ther so we’re back to worrying aboutthat, eh? and stupid design things like how this ipad logitech keyboard is a million times brighter than the sun while the ipad screen itself is set to a morning-friendly low glow i meqn this is ridiculously bright. bAD TASTE IN MOUTH STILL NOT SURE WHAT TO DO WITH THIS . I AM STUCK ON THE INITIAL STEP, AGAIN. HERE I AM, AGAIN, STUCK ON THEINITIAL STEP; . DOROTHEA TELLS ME WHAT TO DO, AND I’M KIND OF DOING IT. I’M READING ANTHONY POWELL, ARREN’T I? EVEN IF SLOWLY AND HALTINGLY BUTOH MY GOD EVERY TIME you wake it back up it goes back to max brightness. ios and ipads are just so fucking boneheadedly useless. i just despise them so much i guess i’ll reread teh next part of dorothea one more time one of these days. not like i ever have any time like morgan had in tutorial, thatlist of what happens during a day... i could make on eof those: 1. do this in the morning for some ungodly unknown reason 2. sleep a little more while millie destroys the kitchen with her flying hooves 3. wake up the littles 4. sleep or else make them breakfast if i’m feeling particularly energized an engaged or guilty 5. sometimes drive megan to jazz band 6. sleep a littel otherwise 7. get hugs and stuff from lib and cel before htye leave for school 8. reluctantly drag myt ass out of bed 9. shower 10. breakfast 11. reluctanty start working 12. look at emails and get distracted by a million things 13. stare at screen waiting for next thing to distract me 14. yes, i’m working; all the things are technically work, but they’re rarely the most urgent or pressing things 15. do that for a few more hours, intersperpes with classes or meetings 16. be involved with the girls when they get home 17. make supper 18. clean up 19. help with homework and practicing 20. shop or do some random thing that comes up 21. get involved with bedtime 22. finally get everyone to bed 23. except megn sometimes stays up late and talks or milie might need something or libby might have a million yards of hoework to got hrough 24. tell myself i’m going to grade now 25. don’t 26. maybe type somewhere in there, most days i do, fifteen mnutes but it takes a great effort and i still don’t know why i’m doing it because i can’t seem to get to the next step of doing something with any of it, of improving or turning it into anything. i’ve read the next part of the book like three times and i’m still not sure what i’m supposed to do. or i am sure but i don’t think i can do it. or i think i could do it but it’s too hard and evasive and diffusive and abstract and hard to pin down. or something. or i just don’t have the discipline or the organization. or icoul is all right with me but i still can’t seem to find time for schand. or something. reading anthony powell almost doesn’t help bececause i can appreciate the layers of snow, the dry powder, the photographic details,and the effortless wit, but i have no idea how i would ever come anywhere close to reproducing it. 27. get in bed, put headphones on and listen to asmr vids while reading. at least last night i read a book instead of staring at a screen. think i’ll try to continue that. that’s at least one thing i can do. not that there’s never anything interesting on screen, but screen is just soaking up too much of my eyeballs lately. its toof renetic. no wonder i can’t imagine what novelists do. i barely had the attention span to begin with, and after years of conditioning by screens that flit like mad frenetic fireflies, i have even less. 28. get drowsy, dump the headphones on the floor, sleep 29. wake up in thenight because of noise or discomfort or having to pee or who knows why 30. sleep some more, a bit fitfully 31. listen to the horrible wretched shreik of an alarm clock, no matter how gentle a ringtone is selected 32. hit snooze 33. feel guilty 34. sit up in bed and do this 35. still not know why or what to do with it or if i’m just fooling myself 36. realize that despite a couple months of doing this, i’m still basically back in the same vortex i’ve been in since i was what, like 12 or something? oh yeah, writing, yeah. but i went from being a kid and being pretty sure i was some kind of genius and everything was easy and the magic flowed like marshmallow sauce, to now, where i’m like oh, yeah, writing, yeah, that seems like a cool idea, but i’m not sure how it translates into today’s technological world, and i’m not sure i can even do it becaue everything i write ends up being an allegory about myself and my *feelings* for fuck’s sake instead of being a photograph of the antarctic, an exploration of the dark, a simple discourse through papery realms of reality or speculation, or anything else. i don’t know enough words and i don’t know what to do with them and i haven’t the discipline or the organization to significantly change it and even if i did i’m just not brilliant enough to put words down in order long enough to make anything anyone would ever want to or need to read. i just can’t do it so i might as well quit 37. except i can’t quite, not completely, so i continue to hang on by a thread, compelled, impelled, guilty, following behind raggedly like the tambourine man, pathetic, balding, shy, awkward 38. realize for the millionth time i need to make some friends. i’m fucking lonely and it’s poisoning me so yeah, that’s pretty much my day. “Once a month, ask yourself, have things improved? and if not, change your methods.” Read that on the internet. God those internet people are such geniuses. How do they do it. What would we do without them.