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What I’ve Learned So Far About Blogging and Life

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Readability Index: Unreadable Due to Length

Alright what I’m going to try to do here is create a unique field theory…I mean a unified field theory of blogging by me. A unified field theory of my life and what blogging means to it. What has writing this blog done to me over the last week and how can I make it useful to my life. How can I enjoy it more fully. How can I do something…how can I feel good about it.

Well, like the first time I started blogging on this mother fucker, I’ve got The National keyed up. Playing “Anyone’s Ghost” over and over again. Great song. I can lose myself in the rhythm of it.

Sometimes I feel like cursing and sometimes I don’t. Sometimes I feel nice and sometimes I’m itchy. Someone just called me. I hate phones because they interrupt everything. People are mad at me all the time because I don’t pick up my phone. But I can’t plan for that shit. I don’t know how they made it back in the day with regular phones just ringing all the time and you couldn’t even see who was calling. Screening your calls meant listening to the answering machine.

But that’s all beside the point of course.

I washed the dishes and ate another muffin. I should eat again before I go to work. I was thinking I should enjoy work and stop dreading leaving the house, but that’s just part of me, dreading leaving the house, I can have as much fun as I want when I get out there but the next day I’ll be dreading it all over again. Much like taking a shower.

I still feel like this blog is a kind of fleeting addiction. I have them all the time. Sometimes I’m really into drawing, or basketball, or wine, or…well anything. The one activity I have done throughout my life is writing. So maybe that bodes well for the blog. Because this is a good kind of writing. A kind of writing that motivates me to keep writing. I really like just spitting out my thoughts. And the craziest thing about it is that people read it. It’s there for people to read, like a well dressed pamphlet fluttering down a busy street, but unlike the pamphlet that gets stomped on and waved away and stuck to car bumpers, this blog gets read by people from all over the world. They take time to read the words that came straight out of my head, without any revision or intense labor over them. It’s crazy to me that people like to read that much. Now I like to read that much, but I never thought that so many other people did. It’s the difference between knowing something and feeling it, is something I always say. I know that people are like me, but I don’t feel it.

But along with the addiction idea, is the feeling that perhaps this isn’t healthy. Perhaps I should be going outside and running around, or cleaning the house, or getting a part time job, or toiling away at writing a novel. This is just a part of how I feel about everything except actual paid by the hour work, the feeling that I should be doing something else, that I could be doing something more productive at that moment. The times I snap out of this feeling are usually when I consider that some people don’t have any time or any choice of what they do at any time of the day. A man with no lets can’t decide to cut his toenails, and a starving child can’t decide whether to eat coconut almond muffins or just skip lunch. So that usually gets me focused back on the crazy thing about my life which is that I have the world available to me, as unfair as that may be to other people.

And I use the word crazy too much. It’s kind of a catch all for things I don’t understand or can’t grasp, as well as something I aspire to, like ‘damn that dude is crazy!’

So I don’t want to feel like this is an addiction. Something I think about all the time, that I can’t wait to get back to, that I’m unhappy if I’m not doing it…unless I do want to feel like that. Isaac Asimov felt like that about writing fiction and I’ve always admired him. A lot of people say about writers: “If you can’t not write, then you’re a writer.” I’ve always replied, “well I guess I’m not a writer because I could sleep all day, wake up drink and watch Downton Abbey reruns and I won’t be worried about a damn bit of writing.” Writing is usually something I do because I’m good at it and I like it. Not because I need it. But maybe being addicted to this blog will be like needing to write, which would then put me in the company of great writers, which would then perhaps make me a great writer.

The most wonderful thing about this blog, and I mean wonderful in the truly literal sense as in it creates within my mind a great sense of…wonder…is that I have been able to in some way make at least one person’s life a little more interesting. It’s really weird, actually, to have the effect on someone through writing. I like to think that I make people’s lives better in general when I know them, because I’m hardworking and nice and charming; but it’s super weird to think that my writing has affected someone I don’t know outside of the written word relationship of blogging. Of course I’ve always known that that was what writing is all about, but I didn’t feel it. And when I say feel and know, of course they are happening in the same place, in the mind with the chemicals and neural pathways and all that, I’m really differentiating between theoretical knowledge and practical knowledge. In theory writing is communication with other minds…but I’ve never before felt the practical application of that knowledge. Just had to make a note for those Ayn Rand types who would laugh at my use of the word “feel.” Ah see, sometimes I worry about impressions for long periods of time without even realizing it. Then again, you can’t say you’re not thinking about the impression you’re making if you’re writing for people to look at it. You’re writing expressly to create an impression, whether in your own mind or someone else’s. What I don’t want to do at least on this blog is to worry that I’m making the wrong impression. Because as I’ve stated before I spend most of m life doing that.

The practical uses of this blog, and by that what I mean to say (or meantersay, as Joe Gargery would say) is the uses of the blog that I would be happy with even if no one ever saw it, are numerous. Being namely that words look pretty on this blog, my thoughts are organized with tags and categories, and even while I’m typing this information is being saved on the internet so that even if my computer should spontaneously combust, I would not lose any of this. So those are good things. Before I started blogging I would write this kind of random bullshit gibberish, but I would save it on a Word document. I would lose all those with my computer. Also with this infinite display of the articles in reverse chronological order, I can more easily reread these posts than I can read all those word documents that are separated and whatnot.

Hm yes but what is the overall idea. What is the purpose? Of course, we all know how I feel about the purpose of life. Since we’re doomed it really doesn’t matter what we do. Except that we can’t. But that’s a load of horseshit.

What then is the difference between bullshit and horseshit?

I do want to create something of value. And I do love writing in this extemporaneous style. Revisions have always been a bitch to me. I have always thought of art as revision, controlling the impression you’re making on people. And that’s well and good. You can’t have a wonderful novel like Freedom without revision. You can’t have an awesome movie like Spartacus without editing. Hm but maybe you can have an incredible novel like On the Road if you practice writing a lot a lot and fill your head jam packed with experiences and information and then sit down at your computer with a gallon of coffee and type for a week straight.

Maybe I will write something in the vein of On the Road, with a Hunter S Thompson slant, with a subject that is truth, that is not fictitious. I will be like Chuck Klosterman, perhaps. The more I blog the more I like that mother fucker and I never once really thought about it before, except right after I got done reading Sex, Drugs, and Cocoa Puffs. I’d pretty much forgotten about him until it came up while I was commenting on someone else’s blog and now I find myself quoting him a lot. And what he does is pretty cool. He talks about the world we live in in a funny way. And an insightful way. I bet I could do something like that at least 10 percent as good as him if I really worked at it.

I think my style of writing is pretty engaging. If I were to talk about something people cared about, I think at least some people would find that worthwhile. Hrmph well…shit

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About Today

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Readability Index: Unreadable

Ok I finally put in some laundry. I had to try to shove the quarters into the machine like three hundred times. I set a timer for my French Press before I went down into the basement, four minutes, and it went off not halfway into my struggle. But it finally worked. There’s a note on the wall from 2001 saying that we tenants should let the landlord know if there are any problems with the machine, but I feel like we should probably have said something by now, so I’m definitely not bringing it up at this point.

I had some thoughts:

I should be a journalist

I should just read books all of the time

I should be a famous bartender

How did that guy on Top Chef get to be famous

The owner of that noodle place

He makes me think I could do some shit too

He just wants to have a good time

Wouldn’t it be funny to start a story with this guy’s next door neighbor lets him in the house, like inivites him over and the guy is kind of weary of the situation because he pretty much likes to be by himself anwyay…but then the neighbor says, “You want a beer?” and he says, “Well, by God, I would like a beer!”

Ok I’ll talk about that stuff later. Maybe.

So I left out of here to go get some shit done and I gotta say it did feel good. Getting shit done just feels good. I don’t know why. I was thinking about it at Stop and Shop while waiting for the bus. It’s like that Bob Marley song, Pass It On, “Live for yourself, you will live in vain, live for others, you will live again.” Well, I really don’t understand that shit at all because you are the only person you know, but then again, we’re all made out of the same elements so we’re really all the same thing, we’re all one, the universe just experiencing itself subjectively. I am everything that has gone before me. And yet I have an ego and can block the world out if I want to, and parts of me want to, one part. You know I’ve never read Freud or Jung. Should fix that. But I did read some Ruth Reichl on the bus, and you know I never have before. Well it was great. She’s awesome. But so Bob Marley, I should watch that documentary again. Marley was the creative title and it was the shit.

But I was thinking, that some of these errands, well I wouldn’t run them if it was just me. I wouldn’t probably run any of them if it was just me, but it was for my girlfriend. Well, not exactly. Like I had some stuff at the library, but so did she, so that was sort of for her. Really I only went because she asked me if I was going to go and I felt stupid saying no since she’d probably be like, well what the hell are you doing all day then?

So being productive. I’m sure it feels good because my mother was always all about being productive. Rather she still is. And so I grew up in an environment that reinforced my getting things done, or however Dr. What’s-his-face would say it. Skinner. BF Skinner. That was a fascinating read, Beyond Freedom and Dignity. If we’re not controlling the environment then we’re simply leaving control of the environment to someone else, because the environment will control the public. Or the society. Something like that.

All the muddled notions one arrives at by way of a thousand books one only read as fast as they could so they could say that they read them…could they be dangerously incomplete? Well. In reality I didn’t read them so I could say…well some of them, perhaps as many as half, could’ve been read that way…for that purpose rather. But mostly, like today, I just start a book and I get so wrapped up in “what happens next!?” that I can’t slow down to appreciate the way it’s done. Like the first page of Garlic and Sapphires, I was like, wow look how she does that, and look at all that alliteration and consternation, this is a beautiful piece of writing, and look at that formatting, but by page 3 I was like hot damn this shit is intense! Is she going to give Le Cirque a 3 star rating? 2 stars? Will she fold? Shit! And before you know it I finished the damn book and it’s two weeks from Friday and I don’t remember a damn thing.

Well I had to take a break here because my girlfriend came home and now I feel less on a roll. She’s pretty awesome, she just walked right in and made chicken stock. And gave me a chicken taco. Then I washed the dishes. Now she’s taking a shower. I made some more coffee because she said she wants some. She has a lot of reading to do which is awesome because it means I can just keep writing and writing. And finishing that damnable laundry.

But shit, what was the point. Yeah so just going out and doing errands, running them rather, well that was enough to make me feel pretty accomplished. At this point that feeling is starting to wear off. But at the time I didn’t feel anxious about whether I was wasting time and whatnot. I guess those are the kinds of things I feel are important. Daily drudgery type things that have nothing to do with art. I don’t know where I got the idea that working at art was a waste of time but I guess it’s down somewhere in my psyche because I don’t make time for it. Of course I have made plenty of time to blog. But then that’s not true, I had all the time there anyway. I just stopped doing a lot of other things like sleeping late, watching porn, watching movies, and washing the dishes, not to mention eating and reading about cocktails, and then all of the sudden I had all this time to blog. So I guess it is true, then, that I made time by clearing away those activities. What is it about blogging then that makes it ok?

Well I guess I haven’t given up entirely the idea that one can make money at writing. Even though by God I have tried. Merlin’s beard. I’ve tried to give up the idea. But it just seems right that I should make my money writing, even though I’ve never sold a damn thing I’ve written, or even tried to. Shit that’s not even true, now that I think about it! I sold a story on Amazon. I think I sold two of them for 99 cents each. Well there you go. That’s progress for you.

One of my favorite proverbs goes something like: Be not afraid of moving slowly, be afraid only of standing still.

Of course I spent most of my time going backwards. Or so it seems.

Where is all this leading to? What’s next?

Reminds me of that scene from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. Damn that was a good movie. Hunter Thompson is everyone’s favorite. And Johnny Depp is my favorite actor. The scene at the hotel when he’s tripping out and trying to check in. “What’s the score here? What’s next?”

Well, I was thinking I could become a food writer. Or a journalist of some kind. I love writing, but I just love typing and typing and never looking back. Maybe I could send it in and someone else could edit it or something. Ah shit. But that’s how Thompson did it. Just let it go. Maybe if I spent enough time practicing, I could do it something like Jack Kerouac. But well that’s completely misunderstood. He worked really hard. I just finished reading a biography that came out recently called The Voice is All and it was by a Carol…something…Carol Johnson..shit I don’t know but it was damned interesting.

I shudder, I sit at my own dining room table, someone else’s dining room table for that matter, this furniture is a rental from the real occupant, I sit shuddering here listening to the demons all around. And by demons I mean those bastards that live upstairs and those bastards who live downstairs. I can hear their every breath. It’s a good thing they’re not big talkers or I’d go mad. No chance of that now. Not at all.

But God damn it. What is going on. I’m positively giddy with the notion, the idea of spending hours just typing random bullshit. I could even get down with typing Random Bullshit Random Bullshit Random Bullshit over and over again. You know, that’s a damn good way at getting better at typing, because the more you type one word the harder it becomes to do it without fucking up.

Positively giddy, where did I pick that phrase up? Either a book movie or TV show that’s for damn sure. Used to be I would pick a phrase or a mannerism up from one of my best friends. But I have moved away from them now, so whatever I say is probably from books or moving pictures.

Everything is unimaginable.

Ah, but damn, I need to get good at everything. Read all kinds of books about food and educate my simple palate. It doesn’t pick anything up at all. Lemongrass? What the fuck. I’ll tell you what an apple tastes like if you can tell me first. Like Ruth Reichl says, food writing is very subjective, to the point that I can’t be absolutely sure that what you taste when you eat an apple is the same thing as what I taste. Just like with colors and all that.

Well, shit. I think I’ll look at comments for a while.

I’m obsessed with myself. That’s for damn sure. Everything on this post has been for damn sure. I’m tired of that.

You know I really like looking at my stats. What for? Shit the writing is the fun thing right? But really, we only write so someone else can read. I never knew that before. And you’d think I didn’t know it now, the way I spew shit on the page like something I don’t want to talk about.

Damn, and I had a million ideas I wanted to talk about. And they all were me. I should write something that adds value to someones life. How do you spell someones? I don’t know. But I learned what a consomme is.

Oh yeah, but I was at The Breakers in the gift shop looking at all these boring ass books and thought, shit, I could be entertained for years just reading these dumb ass books. I should just bartend, make money, and read books.

Has a Funny Part at the End About Smallpox Blankets, Random Bullshit , , , , 3 Comments

Forgetting to Eat

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Ah shit. Everything looks cool in blog form. Fuck it I’m just going to type on here all the time. Good God what time is it. I am feeling weird. I have been sitting for over three hours. Shit. I never do that. I need some coffee. I’ve had to piss for most of those three hours I think, and I turned the god damn heat on for no reason. I thought I was going to go into the office where it’s usually cold but when you turn on the heat it feels great but anyway I’m just sitting here at the dining room table.

Hoo dang. Going to go make some cocktails. Well, another morning of not feeling accomplished. Just what the fuck do I have to do to feel good about shit. Idleness is the ultimate sin. Or is it just the garden of sin. Idleness is the fertile soil in which sin is rooted. Ah fuck me I have to wash the dishes before I go, too. Christ.

When’s the next bus coming? What’s important in life? Well, obviously nothing at all, since if there’s any other civilization in the universe that knows how to travel from galaxy to galaxy they’ll show up here by tomorrow afternoon and use us all for energy so that they can…just keep doing that to someone else. And they’ll all be like, ah shit, here we go again destroying another planet. Fuck this shit. And we have to wash the dishes before we get there.

And if there aren’t any other civilizations trying to do that, well all of our children’s children’s children will just be consumed by the sun anyway. Or they’ll escape and become a civilization that goes around looking for other civilizations so they can give them smallpox blankets.

I’ve got recommended links now and they are three: shit, God, and Christ, in that order. Well…shit.

PS: WordPress also now it recommends ‘Television” as a tag. Don’t understand that at all.