On the subject of brain death, gelatin-like haematomas, and yurts
08.16.2005
I have nothing to write about.
Oh, I have plenty going on in my life: the long-distance lover, the long-distance lover being admitted to hospital and having the equivalent to a bowl of cherry Jell-O drained from his calf, my enormous debt load incurred from living on credit for 7 months to avoid working for the Alien Bossman, my inevitable return to work with the Alien Bossman in September, my impending trip next week to Big Sur country in California where I shall be participating in a writer's workshop while living in a yurt and watching my fellow participants soak naked and hippy-like in a nearby hot tub by the sea, my continued struggle to quit smoking, my continued struggle to shrink my body to a reasonable size, and my various ongoing mysterious medical quirks. I could even write about writing: my ongoing pursuit to find a print home for Smoog that would actually pay money, my continued writing of poetry and essays and novels, or my vain attempts at getting published. You'd think I'd have plenty to write about. Unfortunately, should I attempt to focus on any one of these issues, the issue slips out from underneath my focus like a cherry tomato coated with salad dressing from under my fork. The more I keep jabbing my focus at the issue, the more the issue pops out and slithers and glides away from my focus. Of course, that just gets me frustrated, subsequently leading me to jab my focus more furiously at the greasy sneaky issue until my focus is bent and twisted and the inside of my skull is covered with tiny focus puncture holes. A skull punctured by focus becomes entirely unable to hold a thought without it leaking out the holes and disappearing.
I decided I would embrace my non-thinkingness and uncreativity. I won't fight it. I will revel in it. Wallow in it. I will imagine my brain death as a bed, with me wrapping myself in silk sheets naked and greased up with scented massage oils while eating chocolate-dipped strawberries and masturbating to the sounds of Barry White. No, it doesn't get rid of the non-thinking, uncreative braindeath of writer's block. However, it's far, far more enjoyable a pursuit than stabbing at a cherry tomato into perpetuity.
It is the irony of all ironies that I be hit with this dearth of writingness just before I travel a few thousand kilometres to attend the aforementioned naked hippy writing yurt workshop. I will get there, pencil and writing pad at the ready, sit under a redwood while staring out over the cliffs to the Pacific Ocean, and write - absolutely nothing. Of course, thinking along those lines just increases the anxiety, which increases the dread lacing the anxiety, which increases the potential for continued brain death. Ergo, my wallowing in the chocolate-dipped oily Barry White masturbation of said brain death - to keep from having the yurt in my future start lurking ominously. Ominously lurking yurts will do nothing to end my cranial vita interruptus. Lurking yurts will simply result in even fewer words emerging from my addled noggin. My yurt shall not lurk. I shall embrace the impending arrival of my yurt, not fear it. Ohm.
Now certainly, I could blame my brain death on my long distance lover. After all, I immediately entered the aforesaid state of brain death upon his departure, and have yet to emerge into any reasonable state of consciousness. The problem with laying blame is that, while it offers the attractive option of laying said blame and responsibility on someone other than oneself, that also means that one feels no responsibility to actually do anything to get out of said state of braindeath, waiting instead for whomsoever it was that the blame was laid upon. In fact, if you look through human history, you'll notice that a great many of our chronic problems that we never solve are the result of aimless fingerpointing resulting in widespread apathy and further multimillion dollar 20-year scientific studies to find out just who is to blame. Besides, it's not my lover's fault he had to leave. Sure, that's never stopped anyone from laying blame on people in the past, but let's leave him out of it. After all, he's had a difficult weekend, what with the bowl of Jell-O having been extracted from his leg. He got to watch the Jell-O leaving his leg, too. The surgeon performed the procedure in his hospital room - just dosed him with morphine, poked the leg with itsy bitsy anaesthetic needles, got out the scalpel and scissors, opened a hole in his calf, and squeezed out a large gelatin-like haematoma. You can understand, then, that if there's anyone who doesn't need to be blamed for things over which they have no control, it's him.
I now realize I've actually written something: this column. That means that the entire topic of this column is now completely false and totally irrelevant. That means it didn't need to be written. But if I didn't write it, then the column would be true and could be written again. But if I wrote it again, then it would be false. But if that were the case, then wouldn't - well, fuck. I think I've just written the literary equivalent to an Escher drawing.
Of a yurt.
make idle gossip (7 comments so far)
come hither - back off
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