This morning I woke up early-ish. Not when my alarm went off, but shortly after. Honestly, I’m not sure I set my alarm. I’m trying to re-establish routines and habits that will facilitate writing or reading or whatever. This is me trying to be a bit more serious about my “craft” and also trying not to take what I do so seriously (as indicated by the use of quotes around the word craft). In my draft folder, I have close to 4,000 words written about my love/hate relationship with discipline and ambition. It’s called “Discipline, Desire, Ambition and Aversion.” It’s spurred on by this constant battle for my attention, but veers into the psychology of my self-diagnosed version of oppositional defiant disorder. It’s a mess.
This morning, I ran across another instance of life imitating or or art imitating life. I’m never sure which one precedes the other. Yesterday, I did exactly as I had planned (mostly). I spent the entire day in my apartment. I read and wrote. I looked for jobs. I screwed around on my computer (played a video game). I made a hearty pasta dinner. I listened to music and drank wine. I watched John Oliver (those delivery apps and tech disruption can just fuck off). I shook my fist at the world. I scrolled Twitter. I went to bed. This morning, despite being up early, I didn’t want to read or write or do much of anything. I ate my waffles. I scrolled the news. I sat on the sofa where I had to decide: screw around or be “serious.” I felt kinda empty and bored. I had nothing to say (see above paragraph and word salad). I started to read a poem, but put it down. I started to read a different poem by a different author.: “The Gift” by Mary Ruefle. It begins, “The day the living room flooded I had not left the apartment in five days, everything was spotlessly clean, I had no work to do except writing my thoughts in a journal, the thought of which filled me with terror and boredom.” Hmmm…. I guess spending an entire day (or several) inside and being both terrified and bored by the thought of writing isn’t a terribly uncommon experience.
That’s it. that’s the post. I spent yesterday enjoying being holed up in my apartment. I have no work to do except writing my thoughts in a journal. It feels a little boring.