I had this idea where I took a scenario and built on it until I had a story. The catch was that I had to take the second most ridiculous outcome I could think of for each part of the story.

Start with a man with a cold attempting to draw him comic book about life in prison. (Everything outrageous.) Choose the second most outrageous thing you can think of. Start with a man with a cold for a year attempting to draw a comic book about his life in prison. His cold consists of a constant sneezing. He can’t go through an hour without sneezing, even when he sleeps. He lives alone. He lives with caged farm animals. It reminds him of the prison and keeps him inspired for his life’s work. The comic book is drawn as a black etching. Each animal in his house is a different character in his comic book. He uses them to pose the action scenes so he can etch them on the frame.

Suffice to say I got nowhere fast. I have no ability to write stories in this way. I have no ability whatsoever. My mind does not work that way. It doesn’t work at all, come to think of it, consternations here I come. I see it the consternations in the distance with their arms spread wide and I’m arunning toward them. Keep the arms open or I’m going to smash into the pole. They keep their mouths open and let me run in. I could drown in their saliva.

I think my illness is bringing me down. This was the conclusion of one of my two readers. I think he was being kind. My illness is almost over. I went an entire night and day without taking medicine (outside of the yummy caffeine which is the only reason I’m able to write even these pathetic words). My illness is on its way out and I wish it good riddance. It hung around too long and even threatened my trip to Buffalo. But it should be leaving me. Now, if I can get my hearing back, I’d appreciate it. My ears have been stuffed for going on a week now, and I hate listening to the world through a mucus wall.

I thought long and hard about what I was going to write today. And came up with nothing. Not a thing. Not a goddamn thing. That saying really damns god. I never noticed that before. I’m not even sure one could damn god. I mean, what would that mean? How can anyone damn an infinite being? Ah, I get it. I never knew the definition of to damn: prove guilty, wrong, or bad; be highly critical of. Well, I knew it but I didn’t know it, if you know what I mean. I guess you could damn god, blame him for everything that is going wrong. Of course, I don’t need to look to him for the reasons of my failure. I need only into me and the fact that I start these writings so late at night when my creative stores are empty—not that they’re normally filled up, but there’s probably much more of a chance to find something if I plug in earlier in the day. Ah, but that takes true dedication, something I never learned how to harness.

It’s getting late and I’m getting desperate. I will put these words down, one after the next, and call it finished. Complete. Kaput. After this I will put this computer down until tomorrow. Until I find something that inspires and then write that inspiration. I don’t know what happened to me today. I don’t even know what’s going through my brain right now. It feels cloudy and muddy, almost like the mucus wall extended beyond my ears to wrap my entire brain in its farawayness. That should be a word.

Tomorrow is tomorrow and I’ll take that into consideration and hope to have something to say. The caffeine was wasted on me. Everything seems wasted today. I think I may be coming down with something. Maybe depression is the final death throes of an illness. The little viruses are floating around in my bloodstream, trying to make me sneeze and run my nose so they can spread their little RNA packets throughout the world, and when they realize they are losing against the supped-up defenses of my body, they throw away all their stops and open up the spigots to allow the depression to rein freely over my mucus-filled head as a sort of final revenge for them. It’s either that or I’m a pathetic individual with no direction and no Doolies. (She’s still in Dallas, remember.)

Okay, now that I go that out of the way, I can concentrate on the more important things. Like the fact that I’ve been updating this site for every day for the past two months with October 31, 2006 being the last day I didn’t write something for posting. I won’t analyze whether it’s been a good run or a bad run, or whether the run will ever end. I will state most emphatically that the run won’t end today. But if I have many more days like this, the run may be over sooner rather than later.

I have to get back to storying. I have to get back to doing something, to putting words together and editing them and looking back over them and being amazed by my little creations. Now I’m amazed each day that I manage to put the words one in front of the next, so I can crawl under the covers and look back and see what a dedicated (if talentless) individual I am. This is too many days of this in a row. This is too many days where I push words and find no hooks. Where the fuck are the hooks and who stole them? They should give it back. It’s not fair that they should take the ball home with them. I want them back and I want them now.

Ah. The last couple of paragraphs. I can slow down now. I’m over the 900 mark, which means when I go back and edit this (and, yes, I know it’s hard to believe that I edit these words—especially on days like this when it’s all filler and useless and even in its final edited state it shouldn’t exist as things have a rightful reason for existing—i.e., it shouldn’t exist because it’s crap that nobody will ever read or want to read), I’ll easily hit Goal. But I wanted to leave everyone (as in myself, seeing as I’m the only person who will ever read this far into this pathetically painful and consternated entry) with a final joyful thought: boy, are my thighs hot (from the computer, stupid).