Not Writing

I'm run down. That's all I can think of. I find the prospect of writing anything to be ominous and overwhelming. I don't even feel like writing out my grocery list, which means I'll come back from the store with straight razors and cookies and a box of some crazy cheese product I got roped into sampling and thought tasted decent.

Sending me into a grocery store without an itinerary is the moral equivalent of genocide from a time killing perspective. I wander around like my sherpa has been carried of by a particularly foul-tempered yeti. Seriously. It's ridiculous. I can't even count the number of times I've found myself staring at  the lobsters in the fish department and wondering whose job it is to put rubber bands on their claws. That, my friends, is a shit job. But I'll just be staring at the tank and thinking about that poor sonuvabitch in Maine who has to get out of bed knowing he's going to be spending his whole day handcuffing shellfish, and the minutes will spin out into quarter hours. If I'm lucky my phone will ring. If I'm super-lucky it'll be someone I can ask why I came to the store in the first place.

Such is my life without writing.

The problem is, I don't feel particularly witty. I would love to pretend that I write to further a cause or advance some agenda. (hopefully a secret one involving international intrigue and bikini models packing Uzis), but really I just write to amuse myself. You really have no idea how endlessly entertaining I find me. This is not a flattering personality trait. (at least this is what I am told by the ex-...and I suppose she would know). I start to write when I'm in this state, and what comes out looks suspiciously like poetry. I ask myself, "Why are all those sentences so short?" or "Why did I end that thought with an ellipsis?" or "Why did I use the phrase 'cloistered dark and nefarious things' when I'm trying to write a story about being a day camp counselor?" The punctuation is all wrong! God Damnit!! I've written poetry! And poetry is the first step to wild pretention, and frankly I'm just not fond enough of turtlenecks to be saddling THAT horse.

So I'll just go on not writing, and then ....wait...what?

23 comments

Anonymous said...

Some people have a talent for wit when they least intend..you are one of them. jana

Anonymous said...

Yup. I'm with her, you're a funny sum-bitch even when you don't feel like it. But I know (and HATE) the feeling.

It's okay to amuse yourself:p SOMEone has to, right?!

I cringe at the seafood tank. I always think of the Lobstrocities. *shudder* *counts fingers* ~IC

Kurt said...

@jana: Thank you. You are too kind.

Kurt said...

@IC: Dada-Chick!

I love that fucking book.

Not Here said...

Smoke a j.

Kurt said...

@jkcookie: Yes, because making this last longer and becoming even more distracted is EXACTLY the best plan.

Eva said...

You should write to amuse me. THAT should be your whole plan. :)

This blog amused me, by the way.

See, it's not that hard.

(THAT'S WHAT SHE SAID!)

Kurt said...

@GSG: That most certainly is NOT what "she" said.

Glad I still amuse you. :)

Anonymous said...

Suck up Buttercup! Keep writing.

I've been known to go to the store, pay for all the shit, and LEAVE THE STORE without my bag(s). Jesus.

KKvP

Sungodly said...

Ha! Love the bit about poetry. What is it about people that they think a bunch of collected, seemingly random thoughts minus punctuation equals poetry? Or maybe it DOES equal poetry but shitty poetry. I don't care either way, I won't read it.

I like what someone said about you being witty without intending it. Absolutely correct and a heckuva compliment.

Kurt said...

@KKvP: I know I need to suck it up. I have an audience to attend to, right?

I do that at the store ALL the time.

Kurt said...

@Sungodly: Yes, it is sooo easy to make poetry bad, that I tend to write it off altogether. That's a stupid mistake, since some of the best things I've ever read have been poetry.

I don't know if I'm naturally witty but I do get a woody naturally.

Ugh. I hate me sometimes.

Anonymous said...

Correctamundo Kurty! How am I too live vicariously through you when you are whining like a little girl?

KKvP

Anonymous said...

Don't make me write a blog about why I like your writing. Even though I have been planning to do just that for, like, a year.

...CajunSoleil

Kurt said...

@Cajun Soliel: The only thing I've been planning to do for a year is sober up. I still have a few months...so it's okay.

Char said...

LOL yeah...not writing and you. don't go together, sorry.

foxxx said...

Even when you're not writing you can use phrases like 'cloistered dark and nefarious things' and all I can do is read them and wish I could come even close to that when I am.

Anonymous said...

I have a lady friend that is "not writing". She told me that all writers are narcissists and that she just wasn't that into herself.

From what I've read, I don't know Vox, but I think you've got what it takes to succeed.

Cynthia said...

Unschlumping yourself is not easily done...as the good Dr. once wrote.

Try adjusting your meds. That's my approach. Take half of one of the blue ones and half of one of the yellow ones and dissolve them into a stoli martini. Then break open a green powdery one and snort the contents off the kitchen counter as a chaser. Perks ya right up.

Kurt said...

@Char: You're sweet.

Kurt said...

@foxxx: And my poetry is the very definition of "nefarious", I assure you.

Kurt said...

@Floyd: Heh. I believe that about writers. I am just feeling a bit ugly right now.

Kurt said...

@Cynthia: God, how I've missed you!