Hostage

I'm parked in the parking lot of a local church, just temporarily, on my way home. There's soy milk in the trunk but it will keep a little while, and none of my other purchases have to be put in the fridge.  I'm on my way home -- close, in fact -- but I don't want to be on my way home.....not because I don't love my husband, not because I don't like our condo, not because I don't love our kitty cat, not because I don't like eating sous-vide steak ......because I'm afraid of the monster that awaits me at home:
me.
I am the thing that I fear. I am what holds myself hostage A part of me hates the rest of Me Part of Me holds the rest of me back held hostage by my fears and insecurities and Dread and denial and trying to run from things so much that I am by now in a tiny and ever tinier box.

Turning Over A New Leaf, Hopefully, One Day At A Time

Okay, so....Hola, to whoever? whomever? may be reading this.

(giggle -- sounds like the following sentence should be "If you're reading this, it means the monster caught me and devoured me with his slavering fangs. Tell my mother I love her....")

Anyway, I used to enjoy (or I remember it that way, at least) the school assignments wherein the teacher would require us to keep a journal for a week or whatever, and we either had to write a minimum of (2? 3? I don't remember the number...) paragraphs -- OR if you wrote a poem, it counted as a complete journal entry -- per day. I had half entertained using this idea for / as my blog, but then I quailed at the thought of making people bored or something. So many bloggers are so productive, prolific, and witty on a daily basis, you see, or at least a weekly basis...it's intimidating.

However, eff that line of thinking. For one thing, as a friend of mine typed on his most excellent blog The Ramen Stand, "Who cares if nobody reads this thing, ever. This is for me...Never feel as though I HAVE to post. Relieve pressure. This is for fun." So, thank you, Nate Bezner, for inspiring me to give blogging another shot!

So, I guess I'm sort of proclaiming, at least to myself, that writing something in this blog and posting it, hopefully daily but at least once a week, will be mainly what this is all about: writing exercise + therapy. But also, a place to store a few links or lists or random reminders about things, here and there. We'll see.

And allow me to wish EVERYONE a Happy Thursday!

written before midnight, posted after midnight - and now, goodnight

(Okay...wrote this one actually today, unlike the other two I posted today, which were not actually written today.  It appears that I sort of wrote it once before already (entitled I Hope Perfectionism Falls Down the Stairs and Gets Gout). Well, too bad.  I wrote it today (okay, technically, since it is after midnight, it was in fact yesterday...) and I'm posting it not-today-but-feels-like-today-because-I-haven't-gone-to-bed-yet.

Ah, OCD...it makes for some interesting sentences.)

So....

I have some things I have to "work out", personally, and I always mean to get around to writing, and I think better when I can write it down, so...

"Problem solved!"

It may not be interesting to ANYONE but me, however, writing it here and there results in

= collecting paper = too much, so am now going to be doing sort of diary/website/etc

on this blog. Probably no-one reading anyway; suits me fine if it's just me & maybe a friend or two peering at it.

The thing is...

when I am away from a screen or paper (really I hardly ever have written anything on a screen, only some poems in the college computer lab a lifetime ago --

still, as mentioned b/f, there is too much paper)

anyway, I come up with insights, minor "voila"s, etc, bits of things -

so many thoughts and it's hard to hold them if i don't type with closed eyes they will disintegrate

i will get hung up b/c the thoughts they are such a tide

so yeah, I was upstairs and having thoughts i wanted to put into a blog, like

"indecision kills"

Grr - I came straight downstairs and started typing, with my eyes closed == but I had already lost the thoughts as I began to type.

I know that perfection is my enemy, and so is form and expectation (and sometimes self-in(tro)spection)

I wonder if i am the only one who write (types) "blind" - out of sheer necessity?

i know the distraction element is so incredible in my mind at any given time

One thing I listened to was radio remix - tonight's show informed it somehow but how?

I remember that the in between times of life informed was what i was going to type about yesterday

all swept away now by new thoughts but what were they? they are leaking out of my head the more seconds pass that i am away from their original conception

radio the man was talking about bit bits various flotsam and jetsam and puts them together well that is what this blog is going to be b/c that's what

it was meant to be

we'll see

but anyway there are things in the emails to retrieve

and yesterday I was thinking about the in between moments of everyday life and maybe how I am, when in those in-between moments? But I can't remember exactly.

GAH! so frustrating!!!!!

I've written a thousand opening sentences for blogs, in my head, but they never stay long enough for me to put them IN the blog.

This will be the next blog entry anyway - screw it.

I Hope Perfectionism Falls Down the Stairs And Gets Gout

Perfectionism is the enemy, as I pointed out in my First Blog Ever:

"Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life, and it is the main obstacle between you and a sh**ty first draft. I think perfectionism is based on the obsessive belief that if you run carefully enough, hitting each stepping-stone just right, you won't have to die. The truth is that you will die anyway and that a lot of people who aren't even looking at their feet are going to do a whole lot better than you, and have a lot more fun while they're doing it.”
― Anne Lamott, Bird by Bird: Some Instructions on Writing and Life

Well - sigh - it turns out that I am even more scared of not doing things perfectly than I thought I was, because it's already...
all the things...
is it that I...
[WARNING: VERY LITTLE CORRECT PUNCTUATION TO FOLLOW; ALSO, TREMENDOUSLY LONG RUN-ON WANDERING JAMES-JOYCE-MEETS-E-E-CUMMINGS STUFF FOLLOWS]
dammit got in front of the screen and now can't think of earlier thoughts - why don't I have a better memory?
may thus be making this blog private or semi-private or something to that effect
see i feel hesitant sometimes re: posting pontification / journal entry type stuff; don't want to sound self-involved -- have been advised that... or not advised exactly...it's just that you see SO may negative comments on things you see on the web, anywhere (trolls, etc). one tries to be clever on fb which translates most often into being scathingly witty -- but then if you think about putting yourself out there to be scathed, well........
So I was originally going to do a carefully balanced blog (representative of my scattered nature): sometimes frippery, other times making a point (but never being dull or self-indulgent gods forbid), and some times a list, or here or there a poem - I could see it all in my minds eye; however i have a long history of thinking "i see it in my mind's eye wait a minute the reality isn't looking like my mind's eye aw never mind" however in this case that will simply result in more ruttin' paper cluttering up our condo when I have already have QUITE ENOUGH PAPER already, thank you! (i means i'm not a candidate for Hoarders yet, but there is at least one room of this condo that begs to differ......)  Thus the need to keep my diary on screen -- see, I write not really to show anyone but more as therapy. i mean, I do think i'm a good poet and i will show people my poetry usually but for a long time now the only way to try to sort out how i really feel when i am frustrated and flummoxed is to write it out - spill it all out onto the page and then try to make sense of it.  Unfortunately, when actual paper is used, you have to physically keep track of the paper, and i am hideously disorganized.
Anyway, it occurred to me that I get enthused about a project or idea or way of living or new personal fad, then it turns out to be harder or take longer or just not turn out to be what i expect so i quit and say never mind - or something overwhelms me and i literally hide in bed or at least avoid - I am very good at mental/emotional dodgeball and it's not good for me.
One of the biggest things that sends me running is stuff along the lines of politics/injustice - such a big messy tangle of things like tons of cat hair trapping dust in loose nests connected by long human hairs and some lint - cat owners can picture it well - JEEZ. Anyway, reading about prison unfairness links to corruption and racism and poverty and selfishness and they link to discrimination and genital mutilation and sexism and repression and it just goes on and on and on......and i get so often torn between wanting to fix it and feeling like i just can't stand to draw another breath if i have to keep facing the awfulness of it looming, so i run and hide & am therefore totally unhelpful in fixing said problem.

P.S. interesting: this spell checker just flagged "pontification" but entirely missed "excpecte" (I type haphazardly when I am trying to type fast). Hmmm.