Morning Pages Day 2 -- Jan 5, 2022

Hrumph. Something new to dread waking up to, great. The Morning Pages can suck my ass. I get it. I gotta get past this shit, or I will never be able to write freely, effortlessly, about things that matter, should anything like that ever occur. Right now, my brain is struggling with the whole “I don’t wanna!” aspect of the exercise.

“I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna, I don’t wanna!!!” said the gelatinous fatty cranial lump, from its perch atop my decrepit arthritic neck.

“So, don’t,” a voice from the corner says, as it strikes an imaginary match against the wall, lights a phantom cigarette, takes a deep drag and pauses for dramatic effect.

“This doesn’t help you get your day started,” another voice chimes in. “You will be stuck here in bed writing this crap until 10:30. How productive is that?”

I look up at the clock. It is 9:05. The voice is probably right.

“You aren’t even doing this exercise properly,” says a familiar voice. This one is my inner critic. He never offers any advice. He just throws quick jabs and retreats before I can question him.

“I don’t care,” I say. And I don’t. I’m doing this exercise out of a stubborn determination to improve my writing skill, to become more mentally fit. Practice, practice, practice. Like playing scales on the guitar. Like doing pushups and situps. This exercise is not an end in itself, but a means to a better, more finely tuned me.

Hrumph. I still don’t wanna.

I stole a case of cat food from Walmart yesterday. This is the second time in a 6 month period that I have forgotten to scan a major item and wheeled my cart out the front door holding my receipt up as I passed the security greeter. The first time it was a big bag of  Purina cat chow. This time it was the wet stuff, Friskies Poultry Blend. So, I’m a serial cat food burglar. Now you know.

9:20. I keep looking up at the clock. It’s easy to do, since it’s right above my TV screen/monitor. I bought the clock (yes, bought) yesterday at Walmart. I’m still getting used to it. Previously, I would have to look over to the east, craning my neck uncomfortably, just to get a glimpse at the time.

I bought the clock so that when I am hosting my support group meeting on Zoom, I won’t have to keep turning my head to see what time it is. I need to be aware of the time so that things don’t go over, but I don’t want to appear distracted or disinterested by constantly looking away. And people tend to think you are bored if you look at a wristwatch or check your phone while they are talking. Now I can look directly past the camera at the clock without appearing to break eye contact. How sly am I?

Harumph. This isn’t going so well.

That’s my voice, by the way. No quotes. If I’m honest, those voices are all me. I don’t buy into the external devil theory. I take ownership of all those thoughts in my head.  This contradicts the whole “automatic thought” premise of cognitive behavioral therapy. Thoughts appear in my head because they were conjured up by me. Why? I don’t know. I’ll have to think about that.

Ok. I thought about it. Perhaps, every thought is a survival based impulse, a stab into the darkness of the void, a match lit to dispel the fear of non-existence. “I think, therefore I am.”

“Whew! I’m glad we got that one figured out,” says my brain. “I was worried there for a minute that I might not exist. Now all I have to do is keep on thinking, every minute every of every day, like a shark swimming to stay alive.”

These thoughts, these beacons of intelligence (well, some of them) exist to prove that I exist. So we’d better keep a constant stream of them coming. No matter what, don’t stop thinking. Quality control goes out the window. This is a fight for our existence. Let’s get those thoughts out there. Come on!

I guess I can get on board with that. I won’t judge the quality or content of these thoughts, since they are just fodder. They are the sounds of a running engine. Brumptity-brum-brum—down the road I go. It’s the silence that worries me. Am I just coasting? If I stop thinking for a second, can I start back up again before, well, you know.

“No, I don’t know,” I say, doing that thing that cells do when they divide. The word will come to me. Mitosis. It didn’t come to me. I had to google “that thing that cells do when they divide.”

“No, I don’t know,” I say, self-bifurcating just for the sake of having a dialogue with myself.

“I think you do know,” comes the reply, “what will happen when you stop thinking.”

It sounds ominous, so naturally, I’m afraid. But I really don’t know. It hasn’t been tried, or at least, not successfully. Like when one holds their breath, it can only be done for a brief moment, and then it must resume. I’m not a swami or yogi, so I can’t prolong those moments for any meaningful length of time.

Clickety-clack, clickety-clack. Once you’re gone, you can’t come back. I keep the train rolling at all costs. Stoke the engine with number 9 coal. If you run out, use the number 8. It’s inferior, but it will go. When that is exhausted, throw in the tables and chairs from the passenger cars, hell, throw in the passengers. The latent heat in the boiler and the kinetic momentum of the wheels and pistons will keep us going.

It won’t get us anywhere, though. I suspect that this train is on a giant loop. I could swear that I’ve seen some of this scenery before. After a while, it all starts to look the same anyhow. The train is moving too fast to really get a look at the details of some of the small towns it is rolling through. Look but don’t linger. The arrow of time does not halt in its path, but travels ever forward, on a graceful arc, returning eventually to its point of origin.

10:07.

Not easy treading water like this. I can’t imagine spending a whole lifetime doing this kind of mental treadmill stuff. When are we done training? When can we start playing the game for real? Besides, writing about something isn’t as good as living it, right? Shouldn’t I be up and about actually doing something? Can’t write about life if you are too busy writing about life to even live it.

 That was also me, although it sounds a lot like the inner critic or the anti-cheerleader.

The real me, the guy typing away here, is getting stiff. And bored. Bored stiff. Stiff as a board. Riffing and fiddling, fidgeting, bitching, itching, twitching, reaching for a moment that hasn’t come, will never come. All I know is, this one isn’t it. This moment, insufficient as it is, claims to be all there is. I know that’s wrong. There’s more. There’s always more.

Sharon used to say that. “There’s always more.” It was a dark aphorism she used, to say that just when you think you’re done cleaning up all the shit, there is always more on the way, up around the bend, waiting pop its poopy head out.

I will dispense with the scatological analogies for the time being. It’s not conducive to me getting on with my day. I need to brush my teeth, exercise and make breakfast. After that, I need to go for a walk. During my downtime, I will continue to look for guitar amp options on Facebook Marketplace and Craigslist. My amp died on Christmas Day. Merry Christmas, from Fender.

Hey, the good news is: I am almost done. I can see the end of the page coming up soon. Praise Bob. It’s a good thing, too. I am loathe to expand on any of the dead-end tidbits that my brain keeps throwing up for story ideas. I don’t see the value of describing a day spent chasing a fly around the house.

I do like the idea that I can hit the enter button at any time…

…regardless of whether or not I am finished with a thought or not. Who cares? I make the rules here. It’s a paragraph if I say it’s a paragraph, see?

 Oh, great. I’ve got a wiseguy here. Let’s all start speaking in Casablanca Noir, shall we? Nope. Not gonna do it. I mean, recycling is great, good for the environment and all, but novels are meant to be just that: novel. Unique. Not rehashed trash from a bygone era. I won’t get sucked into writing fan fiction or relying on a stylistic crutch. I did manage to reach the end of today’s exercise, though. And I even went over by a couple of lines, thanks to my liberal use of the enter button.