Man Down

The last few days have not exactly been conducive to writing.  On Sunday I spent the day with Joel and Megan at their churches and then with Megan's family, and then I hopped on a train in Toledo at 11 p.m.  Though sleeping is generally much easier on a train than a plane or a car, especially on a night train that gives you even more leg room, I know that I neither slept well nor very long.  At 4 in the morning I tried making the best of my time by reading... which quickly turned into crouching in a corner watching the latest season of Californication (the crouching in the corner bit was to make sure I didn't offend anyone with the brief nudity and sexual content that inevitably pops up during the show).  Then for the rest of Monday I was on the train, right up until midnight when I finally disembarked in Providence and had my parents drive me home.  All those hours included lots of reading and sleeping, or being so tired that I couldn't even manage to read or sleep and was instead intoxicated with every passing tree, "ooo, look at that tree!  and that one!"  Needless to say, yesterday I was too tired to do anything: in fact, I was awake for only 11 hours yesterday.  This morning I slept off all of my exhaustion but found myself not getting on my beloved bike for my "morning" ride until nearly noon, when the temperature was already above 90 degrees.  Again, needless to say, I didn't last long on the bike and proceeded to feel like a magic bird swooped down, plucked out an eye, and then replaced all of my vital organs with fruit flies.

When, finally, I was ready to pick up where I left off writing the book about my bike trip across the country to fight human trafficking, I found that I now need a new computer.  As if there is ever a good time for a writer's laptop to die a gruesome death, I feel like now is certainly close to the worst possible time: I do not have energy to approach this situation with my usual calm swagger.  This is a good time for my trademark phrase, "Frick balls."  Or maybe I could go with other trademark phrases of mine, like, "Frick in the face" or "Balls in the face," or "Balls to the walls" or "Whale's balls all up in this lobstershack."  All of these are improvements over my trademark phrase from approximately ten years ago, "Crud muffins," which still provided a unique flare.  Admittedly the one about whale's balls has yet to be trademarked, but I think it's funny and relevant to the case at hand.

Thankfully I'm doing what all aspiring writers as young as I am do at this age, living with the parents, and they have what's called a "family computer."  If the word on the street is correct, these so-called family computers are going out of style faster than whale's balls in a lobstershack.  Still, I'm thankful for something so that I can at least continue blogging.  I'm also thankful that I hand write more than most writers of today.  All of my letters (yes, I write letters, and writing letters is half the battle) are hand-written, all of my works longer than ten pages have a hand-written genesis, and all poems and short essays are hand-written.  Sounds like I have good fortune.  Of course, whatever good fortune I may have is my own doing since I'm the one who instilled a love for writing things by hand in me, so I don't want to use the word "fortune" which, in this context, has connotations of luck.  Luck schmuck as far as I'm concerned. 

Frankly, though, I don't have good fortune, or whatever the heck other word I'd rather use.  I am a creature of routine.  Well, I'm not a creature of routine at all, but if I want to get any writing done ever I have to stick to a schedule and a routine.  A loose schedule and routine, but a schedule and routine nonetheless.  Unfortunately I can now not stick to that schedule because I had planned to pound my book, 27 Million Revolutions for 27 Million Slaves for a few hours a day for the next couple of months.  Being thrown off by even a single day will destroy me.  Yes, destroy me. 

Obviously I know that I will rise again on the wings of the mightiest phoenix you've ever seen and laugh maniacally into an easterly wind that will carry the sounds of pure talent to the heights of Mt. Olympus where the scorchingly beautiful Hera will hear me and leave the great Zeus just to wed the brilliantly resurrected John H.D. Lucy, but I am upset nonetheless.  And I will not rest easily in my blackened tomb, the most hideous writer's block you could ever imagine, until I have a new computer bearing all of my documents, otherwise known as masterpieces-in-waiting. 

For the record, this is the greatest blog post known to all of humankind.