Take what you can, live with the rest.

So. Two days away, two days with a serious distraction, and we're back to see if there is still anything to pick at. Perhaps I am being over dramatic about this, about my giving up on trying this writing thing after starting so soon, but no one knows better than I how easily I'll rabbit when given first chance.

 In any event, here we are and I say what the hell. The weekend was pretty turbulent, maybe the most turbulent in the whole relationship, and a lot of the turbulence came from the vast disparity in our moods. Me, I'm in a good mood, the best mood I've been in since the beginning of the year. The girlfriend's, none of your business, but when I thought about it, I know just why I'm in a good mood and it's not merely because the chemicals in my brain took a shift or because those One-A-Day vitamins I've been taking for the past week or so have kicked in.

 I'm actually excited about this. I don't know why, but I am. I have no expectations and I see nothing coming out of it in the future, but for the time being it's fun and feels right. Maybe it's just because of something Hatchet said the other night during his visit, "So, you're just writing and getting stoned, huh? Good." Something about that appealed to me. Maybe because it came from Hatchet's particular brand of bottomless enthusiasm, but that stroke galvanized me. I decided, "Well, dammit, I'll write again just for the hell of it", which I hadn't done in almost two decades.

 Perhaps it'd be useful to sketch out just why I'm doing this and what I think I'll get out of it when all is said and done. First and foremost, I do not see this being a financial bonanza, neither this blog in particular or the whole writing thing in general. I've had my whack at that and I do not believe I posses the moxie to pull off a writing career. Don't get me wrong, I'd love to actually be a Professional Writer. I used to tell people, when asked, my goal was to write some airport-ready door stopper, sell the rights to Hollywood, and live a life of eccentric obscurity on the residuals. I could live very well on very little, and as a Professional Writer, I'd certainly be up for hammering the occasional column or article for a little extra egg money. Sounds like a pleasant life indeed to me, but unfortunately, to be a Professional Writer one has to have actual material selling, and I don't think I have that in me. Maybe, but it has not even peeped so far.

 I've had ideas for books, sure, and I've sketched the odd outline here or there, but I've never had the balls to actually give it a shot. Most of it's a fear of failure, I'll own that, but I would want anything I'd expect people to buy to be at least enjoyable. I can't seem to find that way. Maybe it's not in me, I don't know.

 I really don't want to do journalism or criticism anymore, but I think I'm stuck with the latter as a part of my nature. Journalism is too much goddamn work and requires one to deal with too much goddamn bullshit. I still have nightmares about doing Little League box scores for The Times. Again, that'd be a great game to play, but I do not, absolutely not, have the internal fire to do that gig anything close to properly and take the licks I'd take. I'm a coward, but I know it. Besides, I'd have to talk to people and I hate talking to people.

 I haven't written for pay in over 10 years because by the time the end came, I hated, absolutely loathed writing, the physical process. Unless I was drunk and rowdy, I was constantly miserable because I knew I'd have to pound out some gibberish on some stupid band. Pretty much like now and cooking, I just absolutely hate having to do anything for pay, and I don't know quite why that is. About six months is how long I can enjoy any job, and by the time I quite writing, I hated it as much I used to hate working in my parents' garden.

 So here we are, and admittedly, it's all been very umbilically oriented so far, but I'm not doing this for anyone's benefit but mine. Sort of like Philip K. Dick's Exegesis, this is an attempt to figure out just what in the hell is wrong with me and what I should do about it. Of course, mine isn't a semi-mystical experience full of time travel, a broken world, and a malevolent god, just fairly tedious neurosis and self-doubt. But we've all got our own crosses to bear, as ridiculous as they might be.

 So, here I am, trying to be a writer. If asked, I would not call myself a writer" no more than I'd call myself a "philosopher". As of right now, I'm currently stuck on "stoner prep cook," which has its points. I'm still excited about it and still want to do it. However, as today shows, I won't always have anything interesting to write about but a desire to nevertheless gibber on. Sorry but it is what it is.