Another lovely day. Munching on walnuts. Thinking about Melville. I was reading Moby Dick last night and I messaged myself saying "He treats the language as worn-out, and must be twisted into something new." Maybe that's why it's hard for people to read as time goes on? People reading it think it's some old-timey way of saying things and everyone spoke that way back then, but no, no they did not. One of my editions of Moby Dick includes reviews from when it was published, and one critic straight-up calls him a lunatic. 

I too enjoy the feeling of words as much as their meaning. 

Well hello, I got my W-2! Apparently I do make some kind of money. That's good to know. 

Artisanal. Breakfast. Cheese. Donuts, lemon filled. Eclair. Fondue. Gruyere. Heart attack. Ipswich. 

I'm thinking of purchasing some custom shoes made. Or getting some kind of custom insert. My right foot is a little smaller than my left and no single pair of shoes ever feels just right on both feet. Tell my story that it may inspire others facing minor inconveniences in their own lives.

As usual the answer to the problem is money. 

Could be worth it. My shoes tend to last a couple years. My dress/work/daily shoes anyway. My walking shoes only live about 4 months. At least they die doing what they loved. 

Anger. Boorish. Churlish. Decadent. Elegy. Flim-flam. Golem. Hibernate. Ilk. Juxtapose. Kilowatt. Lisp. Mendacity. Neep (not a word, just a sound). Otter (river or otherwise). Pontoon. Questions. Reservation. Smattering. Tenacity. Unguent. Veracity. Whoop (the word and the sound). Xylograph (I had to look it up; an engraving in wood or woodcut, especially used in printing). Yench (word I just made up for the feeling of picking up a cold can of drink to take another sip but it's now empty.) Zany.

Getting the blog band back together hasn't been going well. Some of my most interesting friends also seem to be the best at hiding their tracks. One of my favorites, kermit, had long been wary of the hazards of the digital landscape. I imagine them leaping across the digital rooftops at night, helping those in need and then vanishing, leaving nary a trace.

My generation, such as it is, grew up in the nascent world of connectedness, and losing contact with large amounts of people was a normal thing. Graduating elementary and middle school. Or just a friend that moves out of state. Gone. Did we appreciate life and each other more knowing we could lose each other at any moment and never know what happened?

I don't think we did. 

"Everyone wants to have written, but nobody wants to write." -Quote from that video I was watching about writing inspiration. I used to do this thing where I'd run through the alphabet and write a word or phrase. Let's try it.

Argon, the tastiest element! Brevity, the soul of wit because people have a remarkably short attention span and will lose interest in what another person is saying almost immediately. Chocolate. Delta. Echo. Fonetic alphabet. Guillermo (not me, this other Guillermo). Hapless. Indignant. Jocular. Kelp. Live Action Role Play. Mishmash. Neckerchief. Ossuary. Polenta. Quip. Resuscitate. Swirling the water a bit with my hands, but not swimming. Takeout polenta for dinner. Unctuous. Verifiable. Wit, the body of brevity. Xenon, the tastiest element! Yip yip yooray. Zygotes ate my neighbors. 

Now that there's not a blank page staring at me, I can really cut loose. Raise the mainsail. Unfurl the spinnaker. 

Jib. Jib! Jib? Where's the jib?! Oh it left? Things to do, very busy today? Lots of jive un-jibbed to catch up on? Of course, of course; I knew that all along.  

Moby Dick is an allegory for a story that isn't an allegory. 

My friend's dogs might come over to play. They've met before, but the puppies were much smaller. Now that the puppies are bigger, they may feel more confident about playing with the other dogs. They certainly are confident playing with each other. Half the time they sound like they're going to kill each other. Typical siblings, I suppose. 

Sometimes I text myself to remember things. Last night I found this: "Does this count as writing or talking to myself?"

I read my Thomas Ligotti short stories last night, and my chapter of Moby Dick. At some point I texted me "Everything written is some kind of Madness."

Scrolling back through my messages, I see "Reverse Bat: small front arms and big back leg wings."

And maybe a poem? "Secret moments I keep in my heart. Look ye on my grave and know it's not a tomb, it's a garden where they will bloom."

Bah. Feeling a little discombobulated today. I would like to see that reverse-bat. Could be hilariously terrifying.

What are some ways to rekindle motivation for writing again? Live life, I guess. Maybe don't rely entirely on inspiration and dedicate a set time. Small goals and all that. I'd go further and say that a person should pretend they're on a deadline and need to submit something at a certain time. I'm speaking of writing for publication. 

Today, I did not want to sit and write. Same as I don't always want to exercise. I have to remind myself that it's more painful not to do the thing and then try to start later instead of just harnessing that momentum that's already built up. 

That and reading. Gotta keep reading. Gonna try to read one Chapter of Moby Dick every night. Along with another book. Gotta wean myself off the cell phone at night. 

This topic popped up for me because a YouTube video in my subscription feed popped up discussing the topic. I didn't watch much of the actual video, but it's on my mind now.

I remember having some idea of building a writing workshop that was a legit office building with cubicles and stuff. People would have a set schedule, have to dress biz-caz, and turn in stuff. I'd use various business metrics and strategies that are usually used to generate profit and use it to generate words. Not just focused on the end product of a novel or a script. Some assignments would be to do character creation, or write a scenario for an already-created character to be placed in.

Oh and an experimental writing room. Thrown in to a room with only certain tech with which to create and see what happens. Basic, like a paintbrush and you have to write on the walls, and future stuff like a VR headset and you have to go and catch words that fly by before you can use them.

But first I'll need to hire a business-funding proposal writer. Now's really a good time because everyone is already working from home, and the conceit of the writing workshop is that you would have to keep one foot in the dreary world of corporate nonsense to mimic the environment that many great authors created in.

Plus there's the bonus of not being able to self-destruct as easily when you still have to show up for work everyday. There will be lots of counseling available and substance-abuse programs, maybe even basic life skills workshops. 

And some light manual labor. Field trips, I'll call them.

Cell Phone Sunday #2

Moderate success getting up at a reasonable hour. Awoke at 8, fell back asleep and dreamed of a loving family during times of political persecution, and I was out of bed at 9. 

I've prepared a pork shoulder and am braising it in the oven. As I let the puppies outside for the 4th time and plunked down on the couch to watch outtakes of Conan O'brien, I remembered that I meant to write early on weekend mornings, when I'm closest to what I call "The Ego-less Dreamtime of Existential Terror Time of Timelessness" aka the Golden Hour. 

Now my pork butt is in the oven at 450 degrees with the lid off for the next twenty minutes, after which I will reduce the heat to 250 for some number of hours; I forget. I'm no cook; I just make things. 

The puppies would like to come inside now. 

pictured above: my couch usurped by dogs (not pictured: my bed, usurped by dogs)

pictured above: me, democratically-elected ambassador to Dreamland. Not pictured: Night Terrorton, my constant companion.

The braised pork is now covered and braising properly. I've reduced the oven temperature to 250 (Fahrenheit) and now all I must do is wait. Some recipes say I should turn it at some point... but I wasn't really paying attention. I've seasoned the meat with sea salt, pepper, a little worcestershire sauce, and a bottle of Kilt-lifter from Four Peaks Brewery. The beer is the braise, see?

When I took the picture above, I had to navigate away from the blogger app and when I came back it had restarted. I felt that old sinking feeling from the earliest days of blogging because I assumed the auto-save function was on the app too like it was on the desktop version but did I know for certain, really? And did I just lose everything I had written?

But no, there it was in the drafts. Back in ye olden times of manual saving, even that wouldn't always work and a whole post could be lost. For those of you from back in ye even older tymes, this was like having your fellow prankster cavemen running up and pissing on your cave painting while you were adding the final touches to the mighty brontosaurus that Jesus rides into battle against the Elder Gods. (You call him Bro-basaur and you relate to him because he's the only one in the conflict who really has anything to lose; at the end of the day Jesus just ressurects and the Elder Gods can't even die at all and it's like the whole point of these things is to make anyone who can feel miserable feel as much of it as possible because they have nothing better to do.)

Losing my writing feels bad. Even though when I go back and re-read the inanities I've guttered on to the page it seems less likely that it was not for the better.

On the other tentacled horror that has grown from the stump of my missing hand, there is no reason to feel that writing needs to capture some version of myself that I want to believe I am. Bad writing reveals just as much as good writing. Probably need a better way to describe art. Intentionality. That sounds good. And it needs to be like a score. I intended to write a joke, and I did write mostly a joke, so that's a 9 out of 10. Now the joke being funny or not isn't part of this score. 

Maybe it's easier to forget all that and just consider the artist and art as existing in kind of a superposition where they are both One and the observer and the art are also One. And they can be all three as One, that holy trinity we find ourselves in these days where we can learn everything about the author including whatever terrible things they've Twittered and it collapses us into the single position forever. 

I'm also rendering some fat on the stove to use for making gravy; please excuse me.