On witnessing a drinking competition: Pull it out to show him your size. It was the first thought that crossed both of their minds. Other thoughts couldn’t find their way past the initial ones.

On being behind a talkative lady on a short flight: She still talked. She was always talking. She was loud and talked and talked. When she came on the plane I knew she would be trouble. And yet she had interesting things to say. She was almost murdered. Most everyone given the opportunity has important things to say. Will I ever give them the opportunity?

On posting so much crap: I complain way too much. I need to start editing this down to something worthwhile. I can hide the other parts in separate posts, or leave them on my hard drive. I should keep all evidence but not necessarily bore everyone with the boxes of crap that passes between my ears.

On a layover in Houston: There’s an hour between my two flights. I remember the Houston airport fondly. I traveled much for my job (and to visit the Doolies) while working in Houston, and I spent a good deal of that time sitting in the airport. When I realized I had a two hour layover in Houston, I thought of Houston’s wonderful airport. It turns out that the airport is not as wonderful as I remembered. (I think I was confusing it with Continental’s Newark terminal, which is newer and wonderful—at least I think it is.) Memories do play tricks on me: I remember the good parts and those good parts are taped together much better than they ever were when I lived them.

On the book I purchased at the airport: A voice, a scream, a Philip K. Dick novel. I’m reading Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? It’s the book that the movie “Bladerunner” was loosely based on. I’ve been thinking about it since yesterday when we watched “A Scanner Darkly,” another Dick-based movie. Sheep more a novella than a full-length novel, and I managed to read through it a few hours. It had a strange and unfulfilling ending, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Like his movies, I left it with much to think on. Will it inspire me? Of course not. Nothing ever does. I see it as more fuel that I’ll get around to burning one day. If nothing else, Dick does have a way with story. That’s what I need: a way with story.

On realizing I’ll never have an original thought: Sheep reminded me of my terrible Garden story (I went back to the beginning of the Garden story today in the airport to confirm it was terrible—if I had the red confirmed stamp, I would use it, stamping multiple times across the page. Regrettably, I don’t have the stamp, and, besides, even if I had the stamp, it wouldn’t work on the screen. Everything I wrote from now on would be confirmed terrible. I guess that wouldn’t be too far from the truth.) What I did notice about the Garden story was that it had a similar basis to Dick’s story: a world where real animals were rare and people craved a connection to something living besides them. The cause of the dearth of animals in Dick’s story is war, while in mine it is technology (or the belief that technology is better than the real thing). Both end up in the same place. Except his is relayed well and mine is crap.

On what I learned from Dick: Preach. I want to preach. I want my characters to cry onto injustices and demand retributions. I want the readers to cringe at the soliloquies and the knowingness of their tone. I want the readers to think that this isn’t how people normally talk. This shouldn’t be how people talk. And yet there they are, my characters, talking and making sense. And the reader will want to know why it is they said what they said because what they said, that moved my readers a few inches to the left.

On what inspiration I’ll find for my writing: I should write a story about magical times and societal ills defined by fictional worlds. That’s where I want to go. That’s where clever is accepted and encouraged and explored. I need to stop stopping myself and embrace it. Have an idea and run with it. Stop pretending that I have no ideas and I have no stories. Everything is a story in itself. What I need to say is take one of those stories and add the twist that makes me interested. Change the time or the technology. Make it exciting and possible. Take something obvious: “The strength of leaders and the manipulation of people around those leaders,” and turn it into something.

On my use of technology: I had to turn off the “word count” display on Word’s status bar today. It became too distracting. Ever few words I found myself looking down to see how I was doing with Goal. I wrote to the count and not to the David. I should always write to the David. Goals are something that should come later.

On meaningless babble that I should have cut but it turns out I’m too lazy and protective to cut my precious little words: There are far away so many things that drew my imagination and my memories toward where I did not want to go. There is something there that waits for me to see where I am going to head before I head there. That is how it is meant to be and how it always will be.

On small inspirational statements that get me from one section to the next: One more hour and I leave from here. Bitch and complain and say something important about something: addiction, religion, philosophy. Natural storyteller I am not. But that’s okay. It’s something I will learn—sink or swim or sink again. It matters not. It’s about me doing what I want to do and not about doing nothing and saying I could have and should have but didn’t.

On running to the bathroom just as turbulence starts: That’s some bumpy air, I said to nobody in particular. A dangerous trip to the bathroom on the airplane put my stomach in its place. And here I thought I was adventuresome: the way I surfed on the city subways, the way I laughed at the spinning parking ramps that never did seem to end. All that adventure I left on the floor and then some. But I survived my trip back to my seat and here I sit, pecking away at the keyboard, hoping the battery lasts long enough for me to get these words across before it peters out, as batteries have a wont to do. That word “wont” has been popping up at strange places. I should keep my eye on it. It might want more than I’m willing to give it. It’s definitely someone to watch out for.

On negativity: So much negativity today. I guess that’s where I’m coming from. I’ll try this again later, when I’m caffeinated and in the Castle and ready to rethink my goals here.

On endings: This is the end for today. I had thoughts of going on but I need to get to sleep. I’m going to try to sleep without the NyQuil (I’ve said that over the last two nights and failed), but I have a feeling I’ll get out of bed in fifteen minutes and take my shot. Addiction is a wonderful thing. If everything works out, I’ll wake tomorrow feeling right as rain and head to work as a new man. If it doesn’t, I’ll wake up congested and unhappy. As long as I’m better by Friday as I would hate to have to cancel my trip to Buffalo to visit my new nieces.