The continuation of nothingness

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Sorry but I’m going to do it again. You don’t have to read it. You shouldn’t, actually. I’m posting it because Doolies likes to read it to see if she’s in my thoughts. She is just not on today’s paper. Sorry!

Day two started late but at least it started. It’s always important for there to be a second day. It’s so easy to skip out before you truly start. If you do nothing will happen. It’s a law of nature.

I leave the bathroom at the wrong time after a short morning of bicycling around my route looking for troublemakers. Troublemakers on bicycles, that is. “They’re dispatching you to a call,” my partner says as he waves to me from the line for the barista. I sigh audibly. I was readying to settle down to a fifteen minute coffee break with the three other officers. I wanted quiet time before the heat set in. They wave in mock regret as I walk past them.

I whisper into my radio and find out it is another loose soul. It’s the third that morning. I write down the address in my small book and head out. The barista waves when she sees me leave without ordering. I untie my bicycle and pedal down the road. I hear more details in my radio: it’s an old one, three hundred years, last seen a few blocks from the coffeehouse. It was scaring a local resident. The old souls are always the worst.

Okay, push through it. I need many more words and they’re not coming as I expected. I’m generally okay with that. I have a big mug of coffee and many hours of loneliness. I’m not rushing anywhere. I wish things had worked out better this morning but they don’t always.

Triangles and squares, ready your rifles. It’s time to take down those geometric traitors.

Throw ideas on the page and let them seep. Things are not happening again. I’m not surprised. I just have to worry it over and see where it goes.

The explosion shook the house. The rats made merry with their feet.

They were so happy for not suffering. Not that suffering ever made anyone a bad person. It’s only through suffering that you can pretend to be a good person. Such bad truths I fail to share.

I ride the wave. I am the wave. I am a failure in everything.

Short sweet paragraphs with little in the way of sweetness. He wore his shirt with the collar pulled upward to protect his neck from the swords that swung near him.

There’s nothing here. These are useless words in a useless happenstance. I should go home. I should give up and remember that there’s nothing here, nothing worth sharing. Nothing I want to bother with.

Is there anything worse than what I didn’t see?

They’re so old. They’re so young. They’re so jumped over the candlestick.

Still more words to write. I sit on the couch and push buttons on my console and wonder what it is I will write to fill in the void. A documentary will help move this along.

There was once a T-shaped avenue. There were many T-shaped avenues, but this was my avenue. I could know about it the same way as not know about it. This is turning out to be about nothingness.

They started talking and I walked away. I didn’t want to hear. To hear their conversation left a lump in my stomach. I knew it was the anxiety talking, and yet it started to yell and I couldn’t stop the yelling. They might as well be talking about the moon or my most private memories. It was the same horror at hearing them talk. I walked away until I couldn’t hear them anymore, and when they were silent I sat down and could relax.

Their conversation continued in the next room but I pretended not to hear the murmurs.

I was in my own world. I was the center of my own storm. I was thinking there might be something else out there, something that called to me but I didn’t hear it. I never did hear such things, but I pretended that they were close.

These are the words I was talking about before. These are the useless words that don’t say anything but that I throw to the page in the hopes of warming up to real words. I’ll get sick of these consternations. It always happens that way. And when I do I’ll have nothing left to write but story.

We’re arguing over the placement of a piano. It’s not an argument but a discussion. Feng shui is referred to. Energy and blockages. I’m getting tired just putting the lines together to map out flows and understand ancient rules. There’s something to it. I’m just not sure what.

The phone rings again. If only I had my ladybug timer the barbequing would be easier. I’ll have to use the microwave again. For keeping time, that is. Microwaved food tends to taste a bit strange. Not sure if it’s the radiation or something that keeps it going.

I write in three-minute intervals between checking and flipping the steak cooking on barbeque. It’s a better word spelled out, even if it lacks the western twang.

There is nothing here worth posting but lots worth reading. I have to content myself that there was some plan, some worth. Then I need to move on and figure out what that worth is.

I’m reading crappy books. I wonder if reading crappy books and writing crappy words is related somehow. I wish I could get beyond this part, this warm up, this pushing words so I remember how to form words. It’s the monkeys again pounding away on their typewriters with gleeful looks. They’re enjoying themselves even if they don’t quite know what they’re doing. The microwave beeped. I have to flip the meat.

The meat is turned. It’s not browning as well as I hoped. I turned up the heat. Perhaps that’s the answer to most of life’s problems: more heat. It seems to be working for Seattle. With lots of heat people are less likely to do stupid things. Or is it the other way around? Spike Lee seemed to think it was the reverse. I try not to trust moviemakers or Knicks fans. There’s something rotten to root for losers. And yes I’m just bitter. I know how that comes across.

Halfway to nowhere with these words. I used to do this with the Marathon: I would get to this point and no something good was going to happen. So we’re using the same definitions, good was something that was finished for the day. There were only some days where good meant valuable.

The vegetables are being chopped and the dogs are barking. These aren’t our dogs so I don’t feel as guilty. It’s like babies crying but for dogs and without the growing up and out of it part. I guess I shouldn’t complain too loudly.

It’s all about the expense. Keep them away from the emergency room. Let them eat cake! In other words, if they die it’s not my fault. As long as I don’t have to pay anything. That’s how you fix the insurance business: have them pay for funerals so they wouldn’t be so quick to carry people over to their deathbeds. Is there anything more expensive than funerals these days?

My fingernails are getting long. It’s hard to type with long nails. There’s a reason to keep myself well groomed. I’ll get to it tomorrow morning before I head back to the grind.

I’m back after an adventure to the grocery store to exchange two propane tanks so we can eat dinner. Eventually.

I’m adding words for the sake of words. So be it.

I’m exhausted but still eight hundred words short. I should not bother with word counts. Tomorrow morning will be the real test. Can I get up early enough to make a go at this, or will this, like most of my projects, end up a useless pile of words. I have too many of them hanging around the house, clogging up the hallways and drains.

I’m not a visionary. I’m not anything that is anything. But that is neither here nor there.

The green eyed monster asked me what I was typing. I didn’t answer her. The green eyes gave her a way. I knew what she wanted and where she came from. I wondered at the source of such misery. All is not terrible in this world with such beautiful eyes.

I collapsed into the chair. The chair collapsed into me. It was overstuffed with goodness and grasped me tightly. I could sleep for hours in this chair and it knew it. It knew me better than I knew myself. But I didn’t think of such things. Now was not the time for thinking. Now was the time to find turns of phrases that I use repetitively. There are too many of those.

Make things happen. There are always time for things to happen.

 Mercer Island, WA | , , ,