Morning Pages Day 5 -- Jan 10, 2022

 

This Morning Pages business is like some kind of torture device. I feel like I am being locked in a room with a piece of paper and a solitary crayon and being told to draw myself an escape hatch. It’s just me and the thoughts in my head, inside a windowless basement with poor ventilation. Drama queen much? I know. I am not given to hyperbole, I AM hyperbolic in nature.

If I were on a 10 hour train ride, at least I’d be able to look out the window or talk to a fellow passenger. This “inside my head” stuff isn’t the way I want to spend my time. When I go for a walk, I put on some kind of audiobook or listen to music. I can’t tolerate the endless gibber jabber going around in my head otherwise. Perhaps schizophrenics have more interesting conversations with themselves, I don’t know. People with multiple personalities can at least be entertained by the novelty of their characters distinct vocal characterizations. It’s just me in here with me, and I don’t like it.

I suppose I should…

That’s no way to start a sentence, much less a paragraph. Let me try again:

I, um, would rather be tasked with chronicling my dumb dreams. Lately, they haven’t been happening, and I don’t know if it is because of the weed that I’m smoking before bedtime or if these Morning Pages have usurped the rightful spot of my dream journaling. I just don’t seem to have memorable dreams these days. It could be that I’m sleeping on the little couch downstairs again. I’d switched to the bed in the master bedroom after Denise broke me of my long drought of sleeping alone.

Now that we’ve established a rather regular bi-weekly visitation schedule, I am no longer a completely bachelorized caveman. I have female company from time to time. I have a reason to keep things tidy (besides just the general idea that sanitation is a good thing). She’s not very demanding, though, so it is still a matter of self-motivation. I can’t say that I was really a slob before, and I’m certainly not a clean freak now. I’m just a little more aware of the level of filth that I must maintain to keep up appearances. Clean freaks move furniture around and go looking for dirt. I am happy to just take care of the visible nastiness.

I’m having second thoughts about my decision to purchase a Fender Twin. They are heavy and bulky. Probably 100 lbs. How I am going to get that thing moved from the front porch to my downstairs room is kind of iffy. And there will definitely need to be some rearranging that has to take place, since it is twice as big as my Blues Jr. I don’t mind all that, but I’m thinking that it certainly won’t be an amp that I want to take anywhere. The Blues Jr. was at least portable in theory, although I’ve never tested that theory.

I would like to start a band or join one at some point. I miss having that collaboration with other musicians. Something about being by oneself just makes every activity just a little bit less satisfying. Music is rarely an individual thing. Even soloists crave an audience. There’s a kind of external validation that comes from even the presence of a single listener. For me, the trick is to get past the self-consciousness that comes from having an audience. Being in a band seems to solve that. Others are playing music too, so the entire show doesn’t rest on any one individual. It’s an interactive activity, and players play off of one another, creating a whole which is greater than the sum of its parts.

In the pale blue light of the morning, I look around this room (to the extent that my arthritic neck will permit) and I see that it is getting toward the time that I should get up. Perhaps I will exercise today. I realize that I am not under compulsion to do anything. I just settle for the routine that I have adopted out of an abundance of prophylactic caution. If I exercise, I will be healthier and therefore feel better in the long run. In the short run, I will grumble and feel like this is just another unnecessary chore.

Getting up to pee is another thing I probably “should” do, but you know me and shoulds. Fuck ‘em. Fuck ‘em in the ear with a screwdriver. Tell me what I should do, and I will launch into a long diatribe about the intrinsic meaninglessness of life and the lack of any schematic outlining purpose or propriety. Anything goes. Except that, in some cases, it doesn’t. But I usually wait until I have confirmed, though trial and error, that something is an untenable or unsustainable practice. Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it. I figure that someone has to be the teller of the cautionary tale, so it may as well be me. That’s for the non-obvious stuff. Things like, “Should we step in front of a bus to test out our mortality?” I will leave to other fools. I am content to go along with consensus reality on issues like that.

Whether I need to get up to pee or not is a subjective matter. And since I’m the subject, I’m going to say that it doesn’t matter. If I get up now, I will lose my momentum. I will have to sit back down on the couch to finish this little exercise. I will lose valuable time. Ha. As if. My time is about as valuable as, hell, I don’t know, you caught me off guard. No handy analogy or metaphor to spice up that descriptor. My time is as valuable as ______. I’ll come back to that thought later.

Cruising right along, here. Me and my voice have decided to get along for the moment. I’m not mad at myself for not being brilliant. I can’t do that all the time, you know. I am glad enough that I can fool some of the people, some of the time. It is my superpower. The illusion of intelligence. It’s a façade that I have worked hard to create. I don’t have to have actual working plumbing or electrical. My façade is only exterior. Uh, is that a bit redundant? Façade = exterior. A veneer. Not the real content, but only a surface display.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Who are you trying to fool, anyway? There is no audience. There is only a thing, trying to fool itself into thinking that it’s many distinct personalities. I may be part of the illusion, or I may be the whole shebang. I won’t know until I leave this mortal body, whether or not there is anywhere to go, or whether my energy will evaporate like pond water in the summer heat. I don’t reckon thinking about that will change it, so I guess I will put that out of my mind for the time being.

January 10, 2022. What a wonderful time to be alive. I just like the number 22. It is a lucky number for me. My wedding day June 22. My birthday April 22. Double the number 11 and you get 22. Eleven is another number I like, though I don’t know why. But here we are, already eating up the month of January like so many Christmas cookies. Mwam-nom-nom munch. And now it’s almost half gone. When I eat, I keep careful track of how close I am to halfway finished. If I am half done and I am not quite half full, I have to slow way down. I don’t want to be left with any sense of deprivation when I am taking my final bite.

This is going to be another short page, I can just tell. I am not altogether pleased with the results of this everyday chore. As you can see, there are already gaps an holes in my coverage. “Fill three pages” has become “try to at least start on the third page.” I’m not going to get all legalistic about this, however. I don’t want to get my rant on. Not when I have to pee.

And on that note, to the delight of my hungry cats, I will get off the couch and get my day started. Pee first, then exercise, then feed the cats and myself. Then, who knows.