Processing the Process

I almost didn’t write today, my morning started out weird.

Although I did take melatonin last night, I slept uneasily – It snowed yesterday, and the plows were outside, and I was unsure if I had to move my car. I had an appointment pending for later this evening (canceled) and I wanted to wake up early enough to check on it. I woke up, called, *before* coffee which is rare, then made coffee and sat and stared at my living room and my phone for about half a cup before I settled in here. I didn’t even say my daily affirmation until after making coffee.

So I’m not sure what will come of this, but here I am.

I keep having this impulse to tell “you” about me. But there is no you.

I never had imaginary friends when I was a kid. I tried to make some up, but they felt fake, because they were. I remember naming my diary somewhere when I was a kid, probably about 10 or 11, and I can’t remember if that helped. I don’t think it would help here, as honestly I have nothing to say to Anna, or maybe I do, but that’s not the point of this, I don’t think.

Maybe it should be. Anna, how could you do this to me?

In honesty, I have probably done worse things than that to many people. However, I still believe that I am a better person (perhaps I am lying to myself) and deserved better treatment.

I believe I am a better person. A lot of people I know seem to agree with me. I’m not sure what they see in me, but I sure do know what I don’t see in them. Arrogant perhaps, but I’m here on my private corner of the internet and can say whatever I want, while honestly I don’t know who else would ever think of such a thing. Thank you, ad clicker, for bringing the costs down on this self indulgence.

I’m trying not to go back and edit, streamline and tease, and pretend that I’m writing fresh out of sleep like I’m supposed to.

I think this exercise does help my writing overall – or at least I hope it does. again, the urge to edit is strong.

I’ve been writing, unrelated to this, more. Finally. I like seeing this unguided writing practice, though the words are almost unimportant overall. What I see unfolding as I write is a rhythm and form, a shape and sound. I don’t know where it comes from, what makes me feel a certain beat when I get my fingers going on a keyboard, what makes me breath and feel the emotion behind the word that has the right syllables to fit in after the next. I don’t know how different it would be if I went back to pen and paper, and like everyone less than middle aged, I’ve been typing my whole life at this point. I know that whatever I have to say will fit in with the architecture of the piece, on the page.

Without words, I always pay attention to the layout of the piece. I think of the visual aspect of the page like a skeleton, each paragraph as a vertebrae, headings, inset citations, dense meat clinging to them, moving under supple descriptive skin. And those delicate features. Each sentence a blink and a breath, with an arched eyebrow over clear, staring eyes at the end.

A portrait of the Muse.

I feel the same inspiration when writing anything (or at least I’d like to). People concentrate on specific formats of writing, using a different structure for each arena, but that doesn’t make sense to me at all. They say that it’s important to know your audience. The audience is always human, isn’t it? Actually, I do a fair amount of writing for robots, so I can’t say that anymore, but that’s beside the point.

I can see every spot where I got up to use the bathroom, answer a text, looked up a citation, or gave up for the day. And I know that the audience can see it to. That’s the hardest part, smoothing it all out at the end. That’s the hardest part, putting it down knowing that I’ll never be able to pick up right where I left off.

I want to look up Cernowszynski’s papers on creative flow right now, but even thinking about it is wrecking my rhythm. It’s so ironic that this was his area of study, yet even trying to reference him irreparably ruins everyone’s rhythm. I’m going to leave this here just to see later on my second cup how horrendously I have disrespected that poor man’s name.

Omg, it’s way worse than I could have even imagined.

I can’t wait to be finished my current piece (I almost told the open internet what it was). I really do hope that it’s well received, but almost even more than that I’m excited to get on with my next project, which will involve more writing and I feel is so much better suited to my individual skill set. It’s not just a confidence issue – I’m great at critical thinking and making up bullshit, but I’m not half the scientist that I have seen others be – but I’m also more interested in furthering my field overall than I am sitting down and devoting my life to just one star in a universe that I would like to know. I have never wanted a telescope, but I’ve spent many nights looking up at the stars.

Speaking of, I should ask the boy what he’s doing tonight.

I feel like he would understand what I’m going through, but I don’t think he understands how he could fit in with this. I certainly do know that my current absentee boyfriend, who *really* pissed me off last night, doesn’t at all.

I realize that I get angry with people in a different way than other people do.

Finally, these bones are gathering some meat, this post is a body attracting it’s organs, parasites from my mind finding their perfect host.

It’s too bad that they always come out in the form of other people, I don’t want to talk too much about other people.

My Father criticized me more than once about always talking about other people, a criticism that he’s also levied against my Mother, and I do see as valid. I defended myself mildly (criticism is meant for improvement, if I hide from it I will not improve. Besides, would I think he is not smart enough to have already thought of some aspects of my defense before speaking to me anyway? Only an idiot wouldn’t. Defensiveness is pointless, criticism is not an attack. It’s like sparring with friends in preparation for real fights and there is way too much in these parenthesis, like a sinkhole. It’s almost comical at this point – my old anthropology professor would tell me that this is what footnotes are for and he’s absolutely right) by saying that I talk about other people because I myself am thoroughly alienating and don’t actually have a point of intersection in my personality that can cross easily with anyone else’s. He agreed.

The same is true for him, so as I see it. However, he has developed a false personality that people seem to like very, very much. I do to, I admire the fine craftsmanship of self, it’s an excellently tailored person suit. When I was very young, he taught me to do the same. I did, and people like mine very, very much as well.

I think I’ve outgrown it. Besides, I’d rather be naked.

My coffee is done.

2 Comments Add yours

  1. Anna says:

    Thinking about it, I looked back at my old journal from 5th grade, remembering that it had a name that also began with A. The name was Allana.

    That’s awfully close.

    Two betta fish with similar colors, one looking back at the other.

    I actually am unpacking my whole box of old journals and dayplanners, which had been sitting in the same box in the back of my bedroom since I moved here, or shortly thereafter. I feel like once I’m finally unpacked, I’ll move, and have to box it all up again. And if it’s not already in a box, I won’t take it with me, and I want to. Or maybe I’m afraid that it means that I’ll die here, and will in effect never leave this astoundingly ordinary place.

    I’m reading one page from each book as I put it away. My handwriting is so beautiful, it’s wonderful to see how I’ve changed. I also know which ones were read, each betrayal, and recognize the irony that now, I’m out here on the open internet almost begging for an audience. How I have changed.

    There are things in there that no one can ever see, and all things that I haven’t even talked about now and I realize that I have been firmly entrenched in for 17 years. I cringe even to see it. However, I also wrote about how happy they made me, and I needed to see that. And I see how over time they stopped being something I wrote about in my journal, and just became something I scheduled for in my day planner. That’s harder to see.

    I was utterly insane, I can see that now. I wonder how long it will take before I look back at this and say the same thing.

    I actually listed suicide as my top goal in 1993.

    I still have scars.

  2. Anna says:

    It occurs to me that, all said and done, I have been my own imaginary friend for my entire life.

    I guess what’s what all these aliases are about.

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