I shouldn’t be writing yet. I’m still swimming in my own mucus. But here I am. And here I’ll stay. I didn’t get very far with this. I stayed for but a moment before falling into Freecell and the internets and then leaving for dinner. It’s late now and I have a boatload of writing left to do. After dinner, we watched a movie. I left myself with too many words and no plans. That means consternations galore. There’s nothing worth reading here. I give you this warning because I can barely read this through a second time to pretend to give edits. I’ve done my job. I’ve warned you. The Goal was hit but it was hit by throwing shit at a fan and bathing in the dirty rain.

My coughs and congestions are tamed only when drugged. It’s been over four hours since my last drugging and my coughs are becoming worse. I’ll fight through the spasms until I finish this entry and then find sleep with NyQuil. It’s a reward—how far can addiction be after that reward? (Addiction is on my mind after watching “A Scanner Darkly” this afternoon. A very decent movie.) I leave tomorrow at 11:30am to return to Seattle (via Houston). I’ll be home early in the evening in time to spend the rest of the week at work. I head to Buffalo, meeting up with Doolies there, to visit my sister. As I’ve said before, it’s a fun-filled couple of weeks, but tiring.

I am not caffeinated today and this is already feeling very painful. I’ll persevere as I always do. My head is empty. I have visions of nothing around me. I should drink some NyQuil and see if that will help me finish this. I doubt it, but there’s always a chance that alcohol will help, even if that alcohol will put me to sleep. I resisted, again avoiding the addiction that waits behind each dark corner. I do have an addictive personality—thankfully, that addiction relates more to projects and video games than to anything else. Give me a goal (a real goal—not these Goals which keep me typing but saying nothing) and I’ll happily stay awake working toward the mini-goals that lead to the big goal all night. It’s like programming: the big goal is finishing, but the little goals become apparent as I work toward the big goal. That’s what big goals are: a collection of smaller posts.

My mind leads nowhere and has no path to its end. It looks like a large maze where each turn brings me to another blank wall. There is nothing but walls here. Nothing exists outside these walls. I hope once I find the end that will no longer be true. I don’t think there will be an end today. These are only words after words that lead into even more blank walls. I’m repeating myself something awful. This reminds me of the time I stuck toothpicks through my retinas. Okay, I never stuck toothpicks into my eyeballs, but I imagine if I did my feelings would be similar. I’m at the ends of my ropes here. That’s not a reflection of any suicidal thoughts, just of the emptiness that’s running through my head.

I plan to return to some of my unfinished and unedited short stories. I want to see if the Garden story is any good, if there’s anything worth savaging or worth rewriting. It’s unlikely but it is worth a look. I don’t think I’ll get there tonight. I don’t think I’ll get much to anywhere tonight. I’m hoping to pound this out on my fancy new keyboard and go to sleep holding Doolies for the last night this week until we meet in Buffalo. I thought about staying in Dallas, but I need to get back to the Castles for work. There’s always work.

I may be in the last stages of my illness now. If it wasn’t for the weather and my illness, what would I talk about here? Oh yeah: breakfast foods and socks. I know that’s what everyone wants to hear about. I’m resisting talking about it, even though I feel a few parenthetical will do wonders for my word count. Not everything is about Goal, you know—regardless of what I talk about incessantly.

That’s the halfway mark. Let’s try free association without yummy caffeine. I don’t think it’s possible but I have nothing better to do at this moment.

The bed spread is white with vines of greens and auburns. Wings of white feathers are flapping and nothing and nothing and nothing. What’s the purpose of this if I’m not going to convey anything worthwhile? This pains me terribly. This is disgusting. This is worse than a waste of time this is a waste of valuable finger presses. Without caffeine or an idea or a goal, what good is this?

The pains and the last couple of days have not been conducive. I dread this part of the day. I shouldn’t dread this. This should be my reward. I should look forward to my few minutes alone with my screen and keyboard, when I can say something valuable and illuminate the world’s darker places. And yet I look at this with dread, knowing it’ll be the next thirty minutes of nothingness that will put this to bed.

That’s not true. None of that is true. This takes me on a bad day thirty minutes. (On a good day it can take me upward of three to four hours.) It’s a bad day but it’s still worth doing. Anything worth doing I should do every day. It’s discipline, and while this certainly isn’t moving me toward the larger goal, it is moving me toward the shorter goal. All of this text will be protected with the warning at the top that this is consternations and gibberish and something to get to the goal and write words but not in any way shape or form something that is worth reading or looking back over. It’s something I want to get out there and say it’s finished, and it’s almost that.

I guess we all have good days and bad days. I wish my bad days went somewhere. I have small plans I keep hatching with the hopes of getting somewhere on these bad days. I haven’t found where it is I can go, but I’ll keep looking. Don’t hold your breath for me to find something.

This is much freer writing. I’m not saying anything, but I’m typing at high speeds and approaching the goal at rapid speeds. Imagine if I could use this speed to tell a story of some sort. To turn off the editor, the one who demands originality, who flails all analogies and cliches and tells me that they’re not good enough, that I could do better and should do better. Who gives a shit if I don’t do better? What if everything I write, from my story to my (nonexistent and undeveloped) characters, is useless and formless and does nothing and says nothing and is not even interesting. At least I would have said something and moved forward instead of these endless and incoherent consternations about what I should have done if I could have done it but ended up not doing anything at all.

And there it is. I pushed through the edge. I see the bottle of green NyQuil waiting for me. Tomorrow I wake up earlier than I have since arriving to start my trek home. Tomorrow will be better. Tomorrow is always better as long as you don’t worry about tomorrow when trying to do today. You should, however, always know tomorrow will be better when you finish today. It’s my new positive attitude. The better and more complete David. Now, let me go reread this and then throw it up there and I’ll stop worrying about how filled with crud these empty words were.