Yawn, A Lazy Saturday and the Resulting Ponderances

I've just been sitting here, staring at the screen. I have writer's block. Nothing of use is coming. I wrote well a couple times this week, but, like me, the content has been scattered. Good words, though.

Blank is about how I feel. It's not bad, it's not good. It's just keeping me from doing much. It was such a mentally overwhelming week that I think I'm just cerebrally burnt-out right now. I should settle down. I was thinking of forcing myself to go cycling today, but I'm so fucking tired. I think housecleaning has more merit, and then I'll go make some pasta at the brother's place tonight.

Tired, just really, really tired. I have needed a break these past couple of weeks, and today I get it. I have ambitious plans for the next week, though, including a few nights out and full-time work. From Wednesday on, I'm busy, busy. So, maybe today as a rest day is a good move.

A gig looms this week. It has been far too long since I've seen one. Far, far, far. I just want to fucking see more gigs. Really so wrong to ask? The thing is, everyone's so picky about who they'll see that what it really means is, we don't see sweet fuck all. But, boy, we can feel satisfied that the concerts we WOULD see, if only they'd show the fuck up, would really be tha bomb.

The world's fucking full of sanctimony, man. I just want a simple life, no pretensions, no bullshit, no tyranny, no hands played cruelly by fate. I wanna pull a Thoreaux and simplify, simplify, simplify.

Now is the beginning of the calm before the storm, I suspect. I have a feeling things are really gonna pick up for me soon, you know, socially, professionally, etc. I'm having a Shawshank Redemption "better git busy livin', or get busy dyin'" moment, is what it is. I want to live the On life. I'm not currently in the games, and I'm not really just sitting in the stands, but about the best level of commitment you might be able to say of me right now is that I'm the waterboy. A part of the game but of no real consequence.

And it's so fucking lame! God! So, today I'm gonna continue watching my show, then clean up in between acts, and take off for a nice afternoon and evening. Tomorrow, I get busier. It sounds like good stuff, though: a party, a social night, a gig... A good week! And cheap, too! The gig's a fan appreciation night and if you show up early, there's no admission. I love good performers who give a shit. It's this guy, Wil. Humble guitar genius. I'd sleep with him in a heartbeat, too. Real cutie.

I'm gonna be cycling the next three days, and I'll try to do so on Thursday and Friday. I always enjoyed biking home from Yaletown. I need to get seriously active. I notice how much more alive and alert I feel when I get into the rhythm of really pushing the cycling. There's a Zen smoothness that seems to come with it. I'm just incredibly bad at maintaining the exercising when life throws hurdles at me like it has these past six or so weeks. Whew. Honestly, except for about 6 or so weeks at the beginning of my last relationship, I'd say this whole fucking year has sucked. Ahahah. Yep, most of it has. Wow. I've had some good times in amongst it all and I feel a little richer for the experiences, but really, it's been a hard, hard time of it for me since last August. It's been really, really hard. Writing has really been the only thing that keeps me together. Last night and this morning, blocked. It scares me every time it happens now, block, because it's... oh, this is tough to explain. Every time I have to explain writer's block, I get blocked. Ha. I've described it before as a sense of unknowing. Block is when you can't communicate what's inside. It's lost in translation.

I know I've been writing a lot in the last two months, but I have largely felt as though I've had writer's block. I have not been creating great work. I've not been having those moments when I grin after thinking of something particularly witty. The pride I get from knowing I've had a good turn of it has not been knocking on my door of late. It's been very disheartening, and I've been blaming it on other things -- relationship woes, money problems, insecure future, hindrances in other areas, bad diet, lack of exercise. I've been blaming it on things that really probably do have something to do with my inability to write well. But now I have to stop having excuses and really force myself to have higher standards. Ribe tucchus -- it's a Yiddish phrase that translates badly, and a writing technique with a storied and successful record. I'd say its closest translation is "Sit yo' ass down!"

So now I'm saying that I'm going to get busier, but I'm also going to sit more. Well, girl's gotta work. I take the writing seriously. I don't send it out or anything. I said to myself years ago that I really never cared if I made money writing. I just needed to do it. At the time, I couldn't get the words out, but now I can. I'd like to write a book. I've been tossing that notion around for some time. I have this little fantasy of a publisher stepping out of the woodwork and offering me an advance. That'd be nice.

I still lack the writing confidence, and it's because I keep having these really fucked up times of adversity, and I allow them to complicate my life. But, here, let's look at the last year of my life, in snapshots: I lose my job, I get on EI, I start tutoring, things get a little crazy 'cos I can't manage my time, my brother is hit by a Suburban and nearly killed, my father suffers an "early warning" stroke, I suffer near-pneumonic bronchitis -- not once, but three times in five months. I meet a nice guy, he slips and shatters his leg. I fuck up with my EI and am suddenly thrown into six weeks of feverish job search, during which time my relationship suffers, stalls, then stops. This is my year.

It's been a hoot, really.

I think the end really looms now. Something's starting to feel different. A general sense of, "Hey, I don't deserve better, I've fucking well earned it, and now I'm going to take it" has begun to play for me.

At this very moment, though, I'm feeling very much like a jackrabbit stuck staring at advancing headlights.

It's not often, I guess, that we challenge who we think we are with who we're trying to be. You know what I mean? There's the reality of who we are in the world -- ie, admin for a consulting company, at the moment, who writes of inconsequential things and sex -- versus the perception of who we wish we were -- ie, a hip lifestyle guru who's working on a book and just lands a radio gig -- and then there's all the shit that hits us in between.

It's hard to reconcile who we really are with who we've always dreamed of being, and it's scary to come toe-to-toe with that phase in your life where you really have to ask, "Am I happy?" Huh? Am I? I ain't. Not a fucking bit. I know what I want. I want lots of friends again, because I'm good with people and have no reason to be sitting at home alone at 1:17 on a Saturday afternoon (but I'm really glad I am) and I want a really cool career that pushes my buttons and challenges me, giving me the confidence to finally pursue the hard-ass world of the public life. You have to understand, I really do believe in myself. I also know I have the makings of a total failure. I'm willing to fight for the former, though.

I have a big anniversary coming up in 12 days -- the first anniversary of the Cunting Linguist. Nearly a half-million hits now, and in the top 9,000 out of 48 million blogs in the world. I can't really believe that. It's so weird. All these people like reading me when I'm just as fucked up as any of them, but I know how to make it sound real purty. It must be why I keep getting readers offering to take me out for beers. I'm just a normal person, and they know it. But it's still really fucking weird to know a couple thousand people have popped by every 24 hours. Cool, though. :)

And, you know, I'm just at this point where I've accomplished something I always wanted, and that was the knowledge that, for whatever reason, I would have an audience that would love hearing what I had to say. How fucking cool is that? A hundred people, like I had here for forever, was cool enough, but this is wicked fun.

But it's like a heavy makeout session. Damn, it's good, and hey, it might be all you need, but sometimes, having more is simply having more. And I wonder, though, if I've had all this adversity in my life as a way of forcing me to ask myself harder questions.

Am I happy? Am I really just this good? Am I too much a pussy to pursue what needs pursuing? Do I have the courage? Am I resilient enough to deal with real adversity? And so on.

During the last six months, I've got to say I've been surprised at the answers I've been learning about myself. I'm feeling some pride again, and it's a nice feeling.

But, anyhow, the anniversary looms. When I reflect on what I've endured this past year and yet still accomplished, when I consider how much writing I've done in the face of all this adversity, then I know that a) I'm a little more prolific with the words than I might've thought, and b) I'm a tough cookie who's determined. It's nice to recalibrate your opinion of yourself from time to time.

They tell you that success is a choice. Maybe it is. Maybe it's time I dust off my scientist cap and see if they're talking sense.

Right now it's time to finish my movie. I'm glad we had this little talk.