when, if not now?

Staring down another week of work. Sunday night is easier to ignore than it once was. Numbness may explain this phenomenon. The numbness of compounded years of repeated tedium, plus the numbness that two half fingers of scotch affords, that's one whole finger if you're counting. I'm celebrating because the late-season cold that I've been battling has abated in an entirely unexpected fashion. Must have been all that elderberry extract that I've been guzzling. Hopefully the scotch doesn't negate its benefit.

Fruitflies (i.e. Drosophila melanogaster) are driving me crazy. They fester around strawberry hulls, banana peels and glasses of scotch.

This blog is supposed to be about writing and words, but look at what I'm doing here. I'm blathering about nothing in particular because I'm under the influence. I am so ashamed of my need for lexical exhibitionism. I wish I could control the impulse. Alas, I am weak.

Re: writing and words - I thought I was close to beginning something of substance, but all I do is think about it distantly, as though I am afraid to approach the subject. There, I said it.

I will regret this recklessness tomorrow morning at six o'clock. My guarded existence is shaking a finger at me right now, but I choose to pretend that I don't notice. It will have me in its fierce grip soon enough, as I hurtle down the highway toward the numbness that keeps me safe.

book as weapon

I appear to be deluding myself with regard to the presumed cognitive dissonance that prevails over my unending desire to write: it is very simply an excuse for my laziness in the matter. Of course, a lack of inspiration contributes to the stasis as well. But something has changed in the last little while...the ignition of a spark of an idea in my mind has given me a renewed will to act upon the impulse to write. It was something that I wrote on a napkin in a greasy pizza joint in the West Village a couple of years ago. The napkin is gone or lost, but I remember the basics of what I wrote there. I had no idea that I could tie it in to another idea that I thought was completely unrelated. The two fit together, and from this revelation I believe that I can eke out a beginning.

But the beginning will have to wait, again. There is no possible way to approach the physical act of writing while I am entrenched in the mental act of reading Roberto Bolaño's 2666. By its end, I should be sufficiently nonplussed so as not to have any inclination to write, only because it would feel completely hopeless to try and approach any semblance of quality after being beaten over the head with the brilliance of Bolaño's work. As envious as that may seem, I quite enjoy being assaulted with lexical prowess: it doesn't hurt, it simply thrills.

world within the word

The above title is stolen from the William H. Gass essay collection of the same name. The words caught my eye as I was scanning a bookshelf for the solace it always brings me when I do so. It lead me to think about my tortured relationship with words, and my constant pressing wish to be able to manipulate them to my will. When it comes to the act of writing, I hesitate again and again because I am certain that I cannot do the words justice: their place in my mind and their place on the page are so dissonant that reconciliation of the two seems impossible. And yet I hope, continually.

I was under the self-created impression that I was on the verge of making a transition, but it would seem that I am just as reluctant as before. Will it be enough for me to continue to hang onto the words of others, their brilliance blinding me enough to crouch and whimper and utter, I am not worthy! Can I derive enough satisfaction from that reality?

And a reality it most certainly is...my world does, without a hint of doubt, lie within the word, or perhaps it is more appropriate to invert that sentiment into, the word itself is the world; this is where I reside (for now, I am happy to rent, but a time will come when owning will seem more logical).

on the cusp

There is a period of time spent before one begins to write that feels interminable. I currently reside in just such a state of inaction. It is at once painful and jubilant for reasons I do not fully understand. Perhaps it is pain that I feel when a slap of reality allows me to see that my wishes to write are a wasted endeavour. Perhaps jubilation ensues when I have a flash forward to the time when I have finally resolved to begin the physical process, the act of writing, pen in hand, keyboard at hand. Why is the latter so difficult to achieve? I liken it to the attempt at running in a dream: trying, hard as I might, to furiously reach a destination but making no progress in closing the gap...always just there within my grasp but unattainable.

I write this, now, but it doesn't count. This is mere filler that preoccupies me while I struggle with how I can possibly manage to overcome my inertia.

brief introduction

This is the online equivalent of a blank notebook and pen. A word of caution: my notebooks, and they are numerous, remain largely the same as when they came into my possession, which is to say, blank. I am hoping that I do somewhat better with a keyboard and a blog editor. Nothing of import in this, the first post, mainly because I'm staring down the usual Monday morning obligations, and I really have no business sitting here, doing this. The weekend has drawn to a close.