Sunday Purgatory, Volume One

Do you want to know what I wrote in one of my notebooks the other day?

Almost walked to the park today but it looked like rain, the kind that can go on for hours, the kind that drenches you cold. Maybe later if the sun comes out.

That was it, kids. That was all. Isn't that the most boring, nothing drivel you've ever wasted a moment reading in your life? I mean, what was the point? Why did I bother?

Look, I know what I'm supposed to be writing in these notebooks, but it's too often an exercise in tedium so screw that. I'm going to scribble whatever the hell I want to even if doing so is counter-productive to my learning to be a "real" writer, whatever that is. Fuck. So frustrating anyway. In bed, in that twilight zone between sleep and wakefulness, on the toilet, on the walk to work, shopping for produce, shelving books--I get all these intense stream-of-consciousness thoughts in my head that I know I should be putting on the page, but in the moment it's just not possible to do that. Even if I could, somehow the very act of reaching for a pen and grabbing for a notebook alters something, changes the mood and the moment, interrupts the psychic flow. I can't explain. As I grab it and try to get it down it dissipates, or comes out all stiff and artificial, not like it was in my head at all. Maddening. For a while now I've thought I should be investing in a mini-recorder so that I could just transcribe everything later, but again I feel like my hyper-awareness that my ruminating is being recorded "for posterity" will simply ruin everything; again I'll get all self-conscious and edit and censor myself right out of any original or interesting commentary.

So what would you do?

Right.

Maybe I'll just go back to watching television. On my computer.