On the floor

Many years ago I had a blog or a website or a something that made prominent use of the phrase "sleeping on the floor". Story went that I had too much stuff on my bed after cleaning my room that one night, so I... slept on the floor.

I don't remember what date that was, but in any case it was many years and many incarnations of self ago. Curious, I went searching archive.org for the (defunct) domain I thought that webpage was on. A highly embarrassing line of investigation, I tell you.

One thing that definitely crosses the 7 year gap and makes me smile is this tidbit:

ClaymationBliss --what music video is it in?-- I've seeen this music video twice... both times on a Midnight Run Special Music Video Edition. It has this funky shaped claymated guy who takes some of the joy he holds inside himself and manufactures it for profit... only to find later that he had become cold and empty inside. So sad, so sad... I'm looking for a music video, a mp3, a CD... some sort of confirmation that I didn't have the same strange dream twice, while awake. :P Even title and artist would be nice...

That music video was Kenna's "Hellbent" (youtube) from his New Sacred Cow album. Still one of my very favorite artists. I was even lucky enough to get a shirt with my purchase of his new CD Make Sure They See My Face last year.

That shirt was folded earlier today with the rest of the laundry...
...and is now stacked with said laundry on my chair...
...which is why I'm posting from the floor.

Monday was a wretched, wretched day. It didn't start to improve until Reagan got home after 11pm. And while expressing my insanity and frustration at him right then did a lot of good to relieve pressure, true healing didn't begin until shortly after midnight as we sat outside under the Hat's neon sign and shared a pastrami sandwich. No particular switch was flipped to make things great at that point, but that was when we were sharing stories about our days and most of my psycho internal drama had melted far enough into the background that I wasn't thinking about it anymore.

I use words like "insanity" "psycho" and "drama", but it's mostly me degrading myself and my emotions. They're not unfounded, and I don't believe they're completely unreasonable, but these spells of acute internal distress are distasteful to my typically rational temperament. Reagan deals with it well.

The hour is later than I expected, so I have another reason not to be ruled by guilt and force myself to draw. Before noticing that it was so late, I had planned on just telling myself not to be ruled by guilt (I did do my early morning drawing!) and take the night off to read (and hopefully (though the hope in in vain) finish) Midnight's Children.

It's a lovely book, but I feel uneducated and uninformed when I read it and try to puzzle through the words, people, and events of the subcontinent. But I still want to read more Rushdie.

I guess without the fear of "oh gosh! what am I going to post!" I'm lax about production.

carried between my shoulders

(I love that line, I need to remember it and ingrain it in my mind.)

I drew nothing today. It's only (only?!) midnight, but I haven't drawn anything. I haven't even doodled in that book of "things I draw as soon as I wake up in the morning". That makes me especially sad.

The tenseness I'm carrying between my shoulders is in part due to the frittering of a Sunday, but a lot of it is related to listening to a debate on health care. Besides tearing my emotional mind from my philosophical mind, the arguments made by the panelists got me thinking about the larger ideas of structures and governments and economies and nations, which is weighty and complex.

I've been thinking a great deal about paradoxes, contradictions and, utopia lately.

But it's not good for me. I need to draw more.

Kojak Day

What could be more perfect for me than an old-school crime drama about a bald detective? It's demand on my attention is low, but the mystery formula keeps that key, analytical part of my brain distracted while the creative side gets down to business.

I think I'll take a week or so break off of regular TV and see what happens.

Haven't been in the writing mood much lately, although (except for yesterday) there hasn't been much to write about.

Just what I needed

Wednesday I started writing a post and the half-finished draft is still sitting on my blogger dashboard. Thursday I worked and binged on Weeds.

Today was just what I needed for a breath of fresh air and and intake of new/different things. Draco showed up and I helped him drag Reagan to play mini-golf. After a rousing 18 holes, in which Reagan scored three hole-in-ones, including on the first and last bits of the course, I watched the pair of them play Time Crisis 3.

We made it home in time to putter around a bit before the debate. Reagan had to leave after an hour to go to work, but the rest of us watched the show. Draco and I retired upstairs and spent a couple hours flipping between punditry and Mythbusters and (later) Stargate Atlantis. Along with pizza and beer, there were inappropriate comments and acid remarks galore.

Getting out of the house was good for me. For the past couple days I've been running on the last wisps of air in my mental and creative lungs. It's felt like a singer sustaining a note for longer than is reasonable without relaxing to take in oxygen anew.

Now I am refreshed. A day with less pressure to produce, to draw, was muchly needed.

And my husband is home from work. He is more interesting than pundits and internet. Images soon, so I don't neglect posting tonight.

Considering

This thought came up earlier today and I weighed it in my mind. What if, instead of leaving these posts till the last thing, what if I wrote them first thing in the morning? What if I did my pontificating and wool-gathering and reflecting at the beginning of the day with a fresh and clear mind. Instead of employing that early clarity, I most often wait until I'm winding down for bed, and my mind is a muddy collage of experiences and thoughts and worries steeped in exhaustion.

Instead of the bold strokes of dawn and certainty, you get the cluttered edition, like a second hand book with notes in the margins.

Despite not making it to the county fair with Reagan or to the bookstore without (I wanted to read more of Runaways and maybe spend the rest of my "allowance"), I had a solid day with a good deal of drawing and a nice chat with my evil twin, Claire.

In the past few drawing days I've been studious in referencing photos and faithful in my renditions, so I have been left with odd gaps, leftover spaces, on sketchbook pages. Well, this has happened for a long time, but previously I would find a reference that would fit, half-heartedly scribble something non-referenced, or cram something in. Now, I'm boxing off the space and filling it with full-frame scenic illustration doodles. You can catch a little glimpse of it at the bottom of these pages previously posted. Reagan says that those little doodles are the parts of my sketchbook that inspire him the most, that give glimpses into other worlds. I like the idea of these framed bits becoming part of my visual vocabulary.

Since I took a long bath alone a week or so ago I've been slightly obsessed with "discovering" and "defining" myself. I even went so far as to verbally (to my husband) commit to spending some time drawing without influence (tv/movie/book/music) and see what I can do to crack open my mind and truly see and draw what is in there. The idea was (is) to create an encyclopedia of personal work that is truly personal, to document what is in my imagination. Documenting the inhabitants of my mind is the secondary benefit of this proposed exercise, the primary benefit being proving to myself that I have depth to my imagination. I want to prove to myself that the things I draw come from a large, internal, subconscious world that can be accessed if I apply myself well.

Wednesday. Wednesday I will do housekeeping and follow up on a number of small things.



You know the Scannie count is now over 200?

Hello, I am your best intentions

I'm watching Dancing with the Stars. For all my anti-consumerism gusto (which actually came strongly into play during the episodes of life I had all planned out for posting about tonight), I made a last minute decision to watch the premier of Dancing With the Stars "live".

Yes, instead of tuning into Heroes like a good geek, I'm playing vanilla American reality-competition-teevee-watcher.

With great effort, during not-the-dances, I'm doing some sketching and making judicious use of the mute button. Ah, screw, I really do have to draw; I don't have any fresh scans to post.

The insatiable urge I still manage to resist

Lazy, lazy Sunday. As my husband works a seven hour shift then returns later for a two hour meeting. It was a comical moment of contrast when we were home between his work stints, and I was lying bonelessly on the bed, "complaining" about how hard my day of spending time with a friend at the mall was. He was taking off my shoes for me, too. :)

I will never, ever, ever deny how good I have it.

Prior to that, between leaving Brandy at the train station and retrieving Reagan up from work, I languished in the Home Depot parking lot. With only a half hour between drop off (A) and pick-up (B), it was pointless to labor our poor car up the hill for what would be a mere 15 minutes at home. That interim was spent, against all odds, drawing.

I dream of being an artist who can draw anywhere, anytime, at the drop of a hat. I want to be found, under any conditions, sketching in a battered notebook because nothing else will satisfy my restlessness. Tiny bits of progress towards creating on demand have been made as I doodle every morning when I wake up, and today a greater step forward was taken.

I'm glad to always carry with me a scratchbook in which quality takes a back seat to the purity of practice, and I'm even more glad that the book is achieving its intended purpose. And so I show you, with oblivious pride, the things I drew when I couldn't do anything else:



Sadly, the victory is not complete. Upon my arrival home, when the urge was still strong (and I had escaped the loving clutches of a husband who had been deprived of his mate for the previous hours), I instead spent many minutes on the empty calories of internet games, mentally fighting myself the whole time. And convincing myself to log off and darken my screen, I rewarded myself with more lounging-with-Reagan, then a snack, then 20ish pages of Midnight's Children which culminated in a nap.

Reminded by the status messages of far distant friends that "SOME OF US ARE WORKING", I am encouraged to blunder onward and tame my noodly, boneless hand into productivity. I wish I could say that leveler heads were prevailing, but I think it is the slanted ones (with slippery slopes!) that are wooing me to more reading. They promise me that before me stretch three days of uninterrupted drawing potential. No matter that those days will be punctuated with DANCING and interrupted by COUNTY FAIR (maybe), a siren* is calling me back to book-and-nest.

Do you think Salman Rushdie is having an (adverse) effect on my writing?

More drawings, not from today:



*Darren Rawlings makes nice drawings. And he seems like a keen guy.

Double punch

Today I confronted my fears and misgivings and went with Reagan to his "male bonding" event this morning. There was free food after the workout, which promised to make it more social than usual. Instead, the poolee event turned out to be more physically strenuous than usual as the guys ran to a park, did some relays and some wrestling, then ran back.

I met a girl named Rachel, a senior in high school doing ROTC with her boyfriend and two other guys who are signed up to go to boot camp next June. ("June 22".) Rachel and I chatted a little, then I gave her a ride to the park (it takes about the same amount of time to run or drive, turns out) and we continued to converse in a friendly manner while watching the guys get put through the wringer.

One of those high school seniors thought I was 19. :) Another was kinda crazy. The third was Rachel's boyfriend of 7 months. Rachel was the only other "support" person around. She used to be a gymnast (though much more recently than I), and as the park stuff was winding down, a few people were urging us to wrestle. I was amused.

Before we left, I was very resistant to the idea of indulging, in any practical way, Reagan's reality as a future Marine. It felt like glimpsing into the real world from my current fantasy life of luxury. It was looking into a harsh and difficult future without him, a future that's coming all too soon (and yet not soon enough). Sure, he works out almost every day, running and doing weight training, but meeting the people in *that* part of his world (outside Staff Sargent Y) was a little more than I wanted to deal with.

I went anyway.

On the drive Reagan said that going anywhere while listening to my music made him feel like he was in a documentary going on adventures. ((The music in question was "Glory Days" aka: the Gecko song (Just Jack), "Time And Space" (The Accidentals), and "Slow Show" (The National).))

Commence meeting Rachel and her band of dudes, all of whom reminded me of guys I went to high school with. Watching guys wrestle in the fresh-cut grass while first graders practiced soccer a stones throw to our left was not remotely sexy. Fascinating, but not sexy.

Driving home, Reagan asked me if I regretted going. I didn't, and told him so. "But you're going to regret me going." I let him know that his posture, especially during push-ups, could use some work, and his complaint of tallness wouldn't garner any sympathy from me. He promised to pretend not to like my critiques.

The first part of the day was spent dipping my feet in the waters of "associating with Marine-folk". It went well. Unsurprisingly, most of the recruiting officers are friendly, helpful, and not uncomfortable to be around. I had pictured (slightly hopefully, perhaps) a stricter environment, the poolees being driven harder towards perfection. Despite the lack, the whole experience made me more comfortable with the idea of Marines in general and boot camp in particular.

On the other hand...
Cleaning for Brandy's weekend visit pushed me towards confronting the reality of being here. All in all, it may be another 9 months before Reagan has his orders and we move out. True, I may not be here for all of it, or even for most of it, depending on my situation while he's in training, but, no question, I won't be in my(our) own place.

For the duration of our Upland stay, we are in a semi-furnished room, private bathroom, semi-private ante-room, shared kitchen-and-other-downstareas. And for those shared areas we're on unequal footing with our "housemates".

Given this lack of stability with our living situation, I'm not comfortable scheming up my own rules and rhythms of household. Almost as though whatever guidelines and structures I install are pieces of furniture themselves, and the ones we've got already don't match and aren't ours to destroy. Everything is a kludge and there is no circadian flow to our days or weeks or months. There's no limit to the chaos, and I can't impose structure in a situation where clothes pile in corners like snowdrifts because there's not enough room in the nipple-ring dresser than two grown people have to share.

Ignore the big picture. The small picture, day to day, week to week, suits us well enough that it's all taken one bridge at a time. Our lives are made of duct tape, for now and until gravity curves our timeline beyond where I can see.

But I'm fine with it. I spent some time frustrated, dwelling in the bad emotions of anger and self-pity that settle around me whenever I stop flapping my wings, but when I do that, when I stop, I end up noticing that I'm in a free-fall, and every bit of logic and desire points towards me shaking it off and going back to flying the best I can.

Climbing hills

I haven't gotten used to feeling wiped out at 8pm, but I have gotten used to drawing with a third person in the room, at least for today. Draco had an early doctor's appointment halfway here, and chose to hang out here with Reagan and myself for the day.

After a couple hours struggling with my hosting tendencies to always be engaged with guests, I let myself be openly cranky about it. Fortunately, that led to discussion that gave me the freedom to put on headphones and concentrate on work--behavior I would normally consider anti-social. I've been in this position before with similar results, but it doesn't come up often enough for the lesson to stick. Hopefully repetition will help.

Drawing has changed for me in the past couple days. A modification as simple as doing the first layer of a sketch in pencil, then continuing over it with pen has resulted in a dramatic improvement in results. Each drawing takes longer, but quality and consistency have both exhibited a sharp uptick. It really feels like a mental shift that goes below the surface and constitutes real, lasting change.

I am pleased with today, but find it odd to be speaking so strongly in the past tense before 8:30. A writing urge struck me a moment ago, muchlike a poetic whim blew though me as I closed last night's post.

Off-schedule

I don't know how I settled into going to sleep in the early evening the past couple days, but there it is. The upside is a solid six hours of daylight of being alone and drawing (after I wake up).

Reagan dragged me to the bookstore this afternoon even though I was fairly tired, and as a result I spent much of the time feeling overstimulated. All in all it wasn't a bad outing, but once again I was drawn to Artful Blogging in the periodicals section. Take a moment to ponder that feedback loop.

Flipping through it and skimming some of the features I felt a crazy mix of emotions, from jealousy and frustration to awe and inspiration. But I admit that the feelings settled (as they so frequently have in the past couple days) at the negative end of the spectrum. The more I ponder it, the more it seems like a terrible faux pas to admit on a public, online journal that I wish I could cultivate friends or at least repeat acquaintances in this backlit window to the world. If I did say so, wouldn't it smell desperate? And if someone on the fence about me comes around and reads such a desire? Well, stepping outside myself a moment and reading the preview... this paragraph is a bit too disconnected to make a lot of sense out of.

I was hoping this post, after a day missed and after a string of uninspired (text-wise) updates, would be intelligent and thoughtful and worth reading, but I was unable to squirm out from under the great weight that is my own self-reflection. Pity I like this simple format so much, else I'd remove myself from this iteration and reinvent the blog "just because". But, oh, those strange priorities. It is somehow important to me to wear my mind on my sleeve.

As long as I wear my sketches there, too!



I'm going to try to re-mission in the next few days.

Finding the balance

The first part of my day was steeped in Indian lore. After an unintentionally long nap, I got my first walk around the block in more than a month, and some doodling.

Hey, look at that NOT FIXED sleep schedule.



... distracted by bad TV. Want to go to bed.

True zero

I'm astoundingly upset about a TV show, so I'm trying to distract myself with posting.

Today I finally reached the true and absolute bottom of my blog to-read list. At it's worst, when I sat down, the oldest posts were only 6 days old, but it was--is--still an accomplishment to see no bracketed numbers in the title of my gReader tab.

I've done a little light drawing, and a little less-than-light reading, finally diving into Midnight's Children. I've also done a fair bit of walking around and talking with Reagan about things I want to do in the future.

Lately I've been thinking a lot about being trapped in my own reality where a lot of human things don't really make sense. Habits as simple as eating, simple biological things, are tweaked in my head to seem alien. Sometimes I feel far outside my own head and skin and consider other people within themselves and it blows my mind.

Something else that's been on my mind is the number of friends I have in a state of "normal living". A stage has been reached where school is no longer a driving force, and now there's this whole adult world of freedom and work and having to make choices on how to fill the empty hours, whether to make use of them or simply spend them existing.

I have a hard time getting into that mindset of not having projects, not working towards something, not looking forward to something on a personal path. Maybe these friends are moving in their own ways, hidden or unrecognizable to me. But I try to think of myself in that kind of drifting limbo and can't really grasp it. Other kinds of drifting limbo permeate my life, but I can't remember the last time I wasn't working on a personal project of some kind.

Maybe my head is simply muddled by the hours and confusions I pile upon it.



I love this page.

Replacement post

Nothing in my life has been very consistent for the past few days. Everything resembling normalcy in my schedule has gone out the window, leaving me on shifting sands. The moral of this story might very well be "If you don't have to, don't force it"...

I'm going to wait a little longer and see if things fall back into any recognizable rhythm before attempting any kind of personal inventory.

Another super-weary post

Amazing, though, the sketching I got done this morning!



And it seems I have near-infinite stamina when playing Sims2. Fortunately I grok that it's not worth my time under usual circumstances. I liken it to watching a tank of fish. Enjoyable, but not really something that gives back. Actually, a tank of tropical fish probably gives more back than the Sims. :)

Time moves in interesting ways

This is last night's post. Sort of. My ratio of sleeping to waking hours is completely out of whack.

I'm drawing while I still have the strength. Odd that someone as free as I would be so sleep deprived!

Remote post

Sorta. From the Draco Lair. I've been awake almost 24 hours, except for that time I fell asleep during the Godfather. Not Reagan, nor Draco, nor I had seen it before, but starting it late in the evening with a hearty meal of curry had us all drowsing partway through. My excuse is that I'd already been up 20 hours and watched a movie of my own (Fierce Creatures. Thumbs up!) earlier in the day.

Looking forward to some deep sleep when I get home. Hopefully I can wait that long, and not succumb to the Sandman's wiles on the drive home... (don't worry, I won't be behind the wheel!)

Doctor! Doctor!

I watched Doctor Zhivago. It took me almost twice the actual length of the movie, and considering it's 3 hours and 12 minutes, that's saying something. Beautifully epic.

Cycles of self

The overnight has lost its magic somewhat. At this time of day I'm usually beat down and focused, but tonight my mind is still scattered and distracted, tugged on my obligations and experiments that are not quite living up to my expectations.

In a manner of speaking, the obligation is the experiment, or at least they are one in the same as both refer to the letter writing I've done as of late. It's still an intense and enjoyable experiment; maybe the intensity is wearing on me.

I've come to notice more and more in the past couple weeks that I go through definite cycles of personality as each day wears on. As of yet, I haven't been able to formulate a perfect metaphor, but have considered levels of water in a glass, a multilayered jawbreaker, and many layers of socks.

It's not a revelation that our brains operate slightly differently at the end of the day versus at the beginning. From many sources I have heard the advice about sleeping on a problem because it will look much more different in the light of day. Perhaps that right there is an argument for not writing letters before I go to bed, but it is only near the end of the day, when my mind is worn out and laid raw, that I have the impulse to put myself out there by writing to friends and family.

An exchange with my grandmother has been the most eye-opening so far, although on a meta-level. My dad's mother is a sweet woman who raised three children, adored six grandchildren, and three great-grandchildren. Since her husband died a few years ago her mental health has waxed and waned, and I'm wondering if recent reports of her lucidity have been exaggerated. Or maybe I was expecting too much?

Both to my grandmother and my brother I wrote things I wouldn't say in person. I wrote them in earnest late at night, and when I rose the next day I questioned my actions. Maybe it was also late at night when I made the determination to be a diligent letter-writer, and this whole thing is a fallacy to the core. The decision was made when I felt the pull to become a stronger friend and people-person, but most recently my ratio of friendships has gone from equally mixed to a higher quantity of slowly maturing relationships.

I may be writing this from that "she's high on hours, she's getting crazy!" standpoint. Instead of tackling this short list of letters to prepare, I'm going to grant myself a reprieve from paying attention to them until I get a revitalizing hit of sunshine, fresh air, and open road.




PS: Since I'm here, I'll take a moment to reflect on self-challenge and related matters. While The Program has been derailed (along with many other things), the spirit continues on with me making small changes most weeks, if not most days. I'm lucky to be able to pay such close attention to my mental currents and undercurrets. And I think my leg is doing better, which means yoga resumption draws closer!

intentions

I mean well, but I can't seem to manage to do serious bouts of drawing early in the day. First I need to box my brain around a little bit, let it run out the fresh energy of the morning, subdue it, then put it to work.

Or maybe it's the hours I'm keeping.

Stumbling

Despite the massive influxes of wisdom in the past couple days, both from my own mind and the book I read (that caused me to not post last night), I've been plagued more strongly than usual by ennui and a difficulty focusing. Most of this has been blamed on improper sleep last night (head the wrong way, falling asleep without thinking "I'm going to sleep now").

Losing sense of time--not knowing when I went to sleep or when I woke up--is even more discombobulating than simply having an odd schedule, especially in a mode where I'm trying to interact with the world on it's terms more.

Right now I'm struggling and going through the motions. I can't decide if what I need more is some rest before I get ready for tine with family in 5 hours, or some blind discipline to draw more.

For some reason blind discipline sounds more appealing, and not just because I don't have any sketches to post right now. I think I want to put my headphones on and retreat to my own meditative world of pen and paper.

Yesterday

Yesterday I decided my leg was healing fine and there is nothing to worry about.

Last night I removed from my reading list things that were causing me angst.

This morning I looked Reagan in the eye and told him that I simply must get out of the house more.

Later I had a good discussion with Draco about getting caught up in things that don't enrich life

Tonight I bought two books.

On the way back I thought that I might like to write a zine (and wrote about it in a letter to Hannah!)

After that I did some drawing while watching Colbert.

About 20 minutes ago I started digging into Eat Pray Love

Now I'm going to take a bath and continue reading*.

Sunday I will visit my grandmother.



* I dropped in on Amazon to see if EPL was on my wishlist, and along the way tempered my early enthusiasm with reading the "most helpful" negative review and some of the discussion that followed it. There's a lot of calling the author shallow, materialistic, and self absorbed, particularly highlighting the fact that she pitched the book and got an advance before she took the journey she wanted to write about.

It is always my goal to come to a book, experience and interpret it without being influenced by the media circus around it. Granted, I often avoid media circus books so that when I voice my opinions, I don't feel like I have to join one opinionated camp or another (or be lumped into one involuntarily).

Here's to reading objectively but with trust and openness. :)

Unhappy

As a friend put it, I'm stuck in the tubes.

In reply, I went drastic. I ditched 90% of my blog bog (kept the other 10 because they're PEOPLE), and logged out of the Facebook account that is my biggest timewaster.

May I replace these things with real creativity and reading not at a computer. And less angst and misplaced guilt.

My own great divide.

The day/night has started out as draining, and likely will remain so. After flirting with a few shorter essays and articles, I plunged into this interview with Gao Xingjian, a Nobel literature laureate and Chinese artist living, exiled, in France.

I took notes along the way, a handful quotes and paraphrases, a couple conceptual launching points, and a few inspired riffs on themes, including one on exile and asylum. At one point the article mentions that Gao works 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, ostensibly because he can't get enough of this "freedom of expression" vibe, and has to make up for the 20 years of self- and state-censorship he suffered in China. (That last bit isn't explicitly stated, but it sounds good!)

Here's a bit of his personal philosophy:

"Without Isms is neither nihilism nor eclecticism; nor is it egotism or solipsism. It opposes totalitarian dictatorship but also opposes the inflation of the self to God or Superman. It hates seeing other people trampled on like dog shit. Without Isms detests politics and does not take part in politics, but is not opposed to other people who do. If people want to get involved in politics, let them go right ahead. What Without Isms opposes is the foisting of a particular brand of politics on to the individual by means of abstract collective names such as 'the people', 'the race' or 'the nation'."

· From The Case for Literature, translated by Mabel Lee, published by Yale University Press

I'm finding Gao more personally inspiring the more I read the article and mull it over.

"Do your important creations for you!" my brain parses. "Don't worry about selling those important expressions. Don't compromise yourself when it really counts." Gao wrote in secret during some of his time in China, and I don't mean passing copies to friends on the sly. While in a labor camp, he buried his work in the dirt.

Creation, expression, is an imperative in his life.

Proofed by my actions, curiosity is the only imperative in my life. If I look at my days, I consistently spend more time in receiving mode than creating mode. I do my best not to be idle in these times of absorption, instead actively engaging my brain and examining what I read.

I profess, however, that creating is very very important to me. I do draw at least one thing every day, and most days I sketch. The constant evidence of my scratchbook is less creative. My blog posts aren't creative. All those are merely... thoughtful.

What is the conclusion of these facts? What can I learn, how can I grow?

Initially, the outlook is dismal. My intrinsic motivations for creative output will always be outstripped by my interests in religion, philosophy, theory... in humanity. Perhaps my lack of actual experiences drives me to experience things vicariously. Lacking a vibrant personal history, I'm establishing an understanding of the world through text. In many ways, the journal I'm taking notes in is my personal bible, a tome of thoughts, ideas, and seeds of stories. It is rich in Annie-ness, with details enough to be interesting and vagueness enough to be open-ended.

When I have filled this book, when I have crammed it with thoughts on every surface, will I be ready to stop taking notes and start creating?

In the past 10 minutes I've lost all threads of coherency and my thought process devolved into waiting for the other epiphany to drop. Now I see myself as afraid, unprepared to be a valid creator, but not in the sense of skill, but in the sense of soul. I feel like I don't know a single thing about life and the world, so anything I write will be pure pretense.

This is hard.
I'm lost.
I don't understand.
I'm scared.

inter-aether drunk

After an overnight marathon session of blog reading list triage, I dispensed with around 700 posts. But that leaves me with 150 from the past month that I really want to give my attention to.

The other 700 weren't a waste. I got 5 books added to my wishlist and 65 notes of varying levels of coherency in my scratchbook.

The numbers aren't important. Neither are the statistics. How I handle myself in the future is important.

This is a gem of a post about creativity, the force of the internet as a tool for good or not-so-good, and related topics. If only for that one post, I'm glad I didn't wholesale junk the whole backlog.

Upon waking, I will have few obligations, set upon my shoulders by myself or others, and I look forward to that.

Still in that pile that I desperately want to turn my attention to is an article making a case for daydreaming in an increasingly productivity-driven world. That's a topic I especially want to read about.

I had a good day.

Fingertips

I only barely remembered to post tonight.

The most frustrating memory from today was when I felt obligated to do sketches on the letters I sent out. The resistance was likely amplified by the fact that I hadn't done substantial drawings for the few days previous. The dozen or so birds and assorted creatures felt more like a chore, especially because I try to put my best foot forward when I'm creating for other people. No mistakes allowed... and I'm working in ink!

I got over it, and am waiting for the scans so they can go in the mailbox.

The most liberating memory from today was revealing a burdensome semi-secret to a close friend. It was all my issue, but the other party knowing about it now relieves me, as I don't have to hide my feelings (or have feelings that need to be hidden). Yes, cryptic! It was a very personal moment, but I want to remember it.

The most wonderful memory from today was sitting in a nearly empty Barnes and Noble with Reagan. We were squashed into an oversized chair, him flipping through Burton Holmes Travelogues, me half watching the parade of photos, half dozing into his chest. I was very cozy and warm; a Sarah McLachlan album played over the PA. Despite my sleepiness, it was a perfect hour.

There might have been some broader theme for today, but I'm suddenly irritated for no good reason and just want to go to bed.

Yes, this is the next time I'm going to sleep since the last post.

This comes from the middle of a Boston Globe article about the disappearance of dancing

Levitin, the neuroscientist, draws a parallel between people's dancing inhibitions and their discomfort with public singing. In the 1950s, he points out, "people would sit around and sing songs with a piano player. Now there's been a professionalization of singing as well." He suggests that is why we enjoy the first week of "American Idol" so much, because we can laugh at people who don't abide the new social norm: You don't perform in public unless you're really good. Increasingly, he said, we've come to think that way about all social entertainment.

I find the note about the professionalizing of past pastimes to be very much on the nose. And it makes me sad! So sad I bought Men Without Hats's "Saftey Dance" on iTunes instead of finding a way to get it free, like I normally would. (There was a pun/comment in the article that referenced it.)

This feeling that singing and dancing are a practice lost to the current generation fits neatly into my own striving for meaningful personal connections. Sitting around a piano with friends and loved ones, singing the songs that have been sung by families for generations doesn't sound like the beginning of a bad memory, nor does connecting to music and each other by moving to rhythms together.

These things are important to me, and I believe that this is a case in which I can be the change I want to see in the world. Maybe, along with my aspirations to be a successful writer/artist and competent yoga teacher, somewhere in there I'll gain the skills to give free dance lessons. And master Japanese. And French. And live in Iceland.

That list sounds a little over optimistic to be writing at the end of a day I didn't draw anything. Drawing is still at the top of my list. Too much of today was spent reading and sleeping. Reading good things that give me good thoughts, but still absorbing instead of producing (more than notes in my sketchbook).

I eternally ask myself, "When will you take the next step?" The reply usually comes, "What is the next step?"

The next step probably isn't building myself a study program of Japanese characters and Art History flashcards, but I'm doing that anyway.

The next step is definitely going to sleep.