033019 Yesterday it was that you don’t have to be the universal voice of truth hires in the world but by Wyndham perspective, you can just be your normal self and actually have your own voice and that’s OK that’s a good thing that’s part of where the drawing power of story comes from. Today it is that there’s nothing wrong with you except you get out of the habit of being happy. Happiness is always there parentheses or has been so far and I see no reason to stop ) Kind of just waiting then cover and you just have to remember to stop and slow down long enough to let it come out a little bit and yes drugs help with that 033019 I have a new system: you harvest the turffles of stories in the morning, after a dream (or whenever, obvs, but you know, that’s when it’s most likely), using a pen (or Pencil) on a note (or a Note). Later, you go through it one beat at a time and transfer it over to an (Omni)outline (using the “Bones” template); if you get stuck you just put the next beat down without elaboration, but if stuff occurs to you, you can give it sub-headings as deep as you feel like. Still later, you can take the outlined beats and turn them into full text, using whatever editor you like (at the moment, I’m liking Ulysses). Why I think it will work is that it reduces resistance the most at the moments when resistance is the biggest problem. I’m dreaming of a Cretaceous romance, in a sultry pool canopied by broad leaves, the buzzing of oblivious flying life forms, and impending devastation brighter than a billion bombs. 032819 Sitting in San Laurio, choosing my words and actions somewhat carefully in certain domains, carelessly as ever in others, as the magic truffles start to kick in. A woman like a skinny version of Mrs. Sharp back in the day walks in, looks briefly disoriented, then gives a chipper wave and “hello” to the hipster-haired boy behind the counter. “Iced tea. That sounds good, right?” Does she desire reassurance that she’s made the right choice? Or is this the corona of a conversational lodestar whose brilliance I’m too dim to percieve? Either way, I’m still in love with her, and the natural tragedy (so is it really a tragedy?) of the death of who she looks like heightens the longing. Quickly I’m reminded of why I gave up on writing in the first place. There’s too many words. Physical waves of pleasure plus something orange are gushing up from around my tailbone and groin, and are threatening to overtake my throat. Not sure what I’m going to do then. I got three sick kids at home, and one sick kid at school for a couple more hours yet. I was going to come here and type at the top of a blank file, “Now would be a good time to pray.” But I didn’t know what it meant. Now it just seems silly. But everything seems a little silly. Because there’s too many words. Besides going to the dentist, which I finally made an appointment to do, so that’s a good thing, there’s basically one major obstacle in the way of my happy pursuit of intimacy with an appropriate other adult human being: Sexual insecurity. Like, I had that before, but at the bottom of it then was a 24-year-old who could get by on meat, or a 30-something-year-old who was married and into some weird kinky shit where it didn’t matter anyway and the less said about all that the better. But now, now I’m almost 50. *Fifty.* Look at that, willya? What to do with this insane, singing, arcing desire to immerse myself in the beauty of that skinny Mrs-Sharp-Doppelganger over there (who by the way is sitting across a table from a guy who looks disgustingly like someone like me), when I don’t have the elasticity and undying verve to back it up anymore? What *have* I got, then? I know. Boring question, as all the age-old questions are. You want to talk about something new. (Maybe that’s your problem right there, says a sassy skunk on the sidelines, just waiting for her chance to get noticed. She waves her slender cigarette holder with her left paw, and winks and stinks.) Whatever. See what I mean? Too many words, and no definitive place to put them or not put them. They used to be physical objects; back then it was clear what a writer was. Now, “writer” is just one more word among billions, and when you “click on it,” it launches into an advertisement, or a movie, or a meme, or just an endless trail of fascinating bullshit. Does this mean I’m old? That’s another boring question. Should I go for a walk? But where to? Muskego makes me want to puke. Millie’s room is one of the prime targets for our neighbors’ noxious poisonous run-off, the cigarette smoke. God I hate trashy poor people. Fucking chimps around the garbage pile. Yeah, that’s humanity, but this is the worst of the worst. At least some of us have a sense of decency. We only pick out the best garbage, you know? We walk about thirty feet off to take a shit, instead of just squatting right here where we eat. At least we know how to go through the motions and put up a screen between us and our imminent zombification. Everyone in the house is sick except me. Is this it? Is this the end? You truly never know. Thoughts never cease, regardless of the number of words. I want the boy behind the counter, despite his stupid razzly hair stuffed into a stupid innapropriate-for-the-weather sock cap, to notice that I’m staring at the blindingly bright window that is the north wall of this place, this shithole in a stripmall in a shithole suburb, and I want him to understand that I’m a human being, aching with longing and too many words, but of course that’s an unreasonable expectation, if all I present to the world is the topological presence of yet another guy in a coffee shop with an Apple product who apparently has some kind of work to do on it, while drinking coffee. I wouldn’t look twice at that guy either. And maybe *that’s* your problem, says the skunk. Fucking furry little twerp. Who the fuck let her in here anyway? Don’t worry. As soon as the truffles wear off, I’ll go back to not loving every normal boring provincial generic person that walks in here. I’ll go back to grumbling to myself about cigarette butts and being insecure about my job and insurance and stuff. In the meantime, the pleasurable hot coils have extended up the back of my neck and are massaging the base of my brain with a strange mixture of lust, urgency, loss, curiosity, puzzlement, and just generic plain green-orange rivulets of pleasure. My typewriter can talk to me. It can be my kids talking to me. There’s good parts to that and bad parts to that. Underneath it all, I’m still pretty exhausted. There might be a few things I could do to help with that. At least for the next little while. Until the next rest area, if you know what I mean. The ugly me-looking guy held the door for the killingly beautiful Mrs-Sharp-looking lady, and they both walked out of here in opposite directions. I guess it’s time for me to walk a little bit more, too, until the rest of Thursday reigns me in to pay the rest of my overdue dues.