Finally getting back here… it’s been a trip. No point in telling anyone here, because there is no one here. Except me.. maybe I should tell myself so that I remember.

How could I forget? <=== not a rhetorical question.

And before I forget, here are some dreams. Starting at the end, of course.

I was in my house, which was actually an apartment I had looked at earlier in the summer. There was a fireplace in the bedroom, but the fireplace was falling apart and bricks and ash were all over the floor next to the mattress I had been sleeping on.

I decided that I would go to the gym before the show. The people who were with me (will I get to describe them? One was my academic friend, who I should call, and an annoying girl that he’d brought over) looked at me with disgust – how could I go to Planet Fitness₁? That place was so disgusting.

I got in my car and drove into town, it was not the town I currently live in, it was the town where the house I own is, Across the bridge, into the railroad district with it’s annoying one way streets and angled parking. I remember walking in, all the machines, it was full of people – it must have been pre-pandemic. White towels everywhere.

I decided to take a shower there, which my waking self knows that I never do, for a few reasons. But I went into the locker room. I couldn’t tell if it was the men’s room or the women’s room, was there a difference? The shower stall was big, but only had a white plastic shower curtain. Once I stepped in and got naked, I realized that I had to pee – but didn’t want to run out to the toilet. There was a plastic container such as one the Chinese Food restaurant uses for soup – I have several of these in my dishwasher right now – and I decided that I would pee in it, I’m not sure why. Then I began showering.

That’s when it got weird. Someone else came in the shower, talking to me like this was totally appropriate. It was not, I was totally alarmed. Then a man. Then a man I know from around town, and actually have seen across the street from the gym I have been considering, with his big fluffy white dog. I was naked, and trying not to freak out. I don’t know why I didn’t just tell them to fucking leave.

I don’t know if I fully finished showering, or if I just gave up₂. I dried off, dressed, and proceeded back upstairs to the lobby and exit. Across the admin desk in the front I saw the people who had interrupted. me while showering walking out – including my dog owning friend, who was carrying my plastic container of piss. He looked at me and smiled, like there was absofuckinglutely nothing unusual about this.

1. I really have to go back to the gym, my body is crying for it. I remember a long time ago, at the house I had owned, and my friends were similarly disgusted when I passed up Gold’s Gym for Planet Fitness. It’s about convenience more than money… maybe I should join the closer gym to me here, even though it’s 3 times more expensive. I wonder if they’re having sales… I wonder if I should even be going, with this plague. 2. The showers were equipped with towel and washcloth dispensers, which were rather poorly designed, but actually a good concept.

I’m a little late, a little slow (is there a point to telling this story), and trying not to let my coffee get cold on purpose so that I can keep writing here. Something I keep wondering if I should go, but always, once I get started, wish I had done more often. I guess it’s like the gym. It’s a good habit, that I for some reason keep trying to get out of anyway.

Speaking of habits, I smoked half a cigarette before writing, and in that I wonder if I missed that dream state where true breakthroughs happen, before the breeze of motivation blows at my back and I become distracted from whatever my mind turned over in my neural compost last night.

Don’t let the coffee get cold on purpose… take a sip.

I realize <=== I originally used the I pronoun here, but there is no need, I would like to be stronger here. Language matters, even though I do not like to censure myself unnecessarily. I’m talking to no one, so there is no need to differentiate my thought process from others here. This is all me.

There are several benefits to writing here. One, and the most important in my *current* opinion. Is to strengthen my writing skills overall. I wonder if I could use these articles as writing samples for a gig that I’m going to apply for in a minute. I’m sure I have better, but I might not depending on when I backed up my hard drive several computers ago. When I write for myself, I speak differently than when I talk to others (except my side dude, who don’t/want to call today…) and I think that my self-voice is beautiful and the way that I should speak all the time.

A few words on the audience that doesn’t matter. I continually have to dumb everything down, cut my sentences short, make my analogies shallow, and cut my vocabulary in less than half in order to have any quality communication with these decidedly unqualified people.

WTF why do I even bother? <=== not a rhetorical question.

There is a rhythm to my writing that only I can see, but I can tell they do appreciate. It’s like Shakespeare’s iambic pentameter. And I can tell when it’s broken. I can tell every time I stopped to check my breathing, blinked to check my sight (omg, that’s a trip), mispelled a word, or reminded myself to take yet another sip of my already cold coffee.

I wonder if there’s a way to alter the rhythm to better accommodate coffee.

I can see the rhythm change as the caffeine kicks in. The pattern is slightly different every day, but there are similarities in the architecture of every post. The subject matter doesn’t matter. It’s the rhythm that I need to notice and find, so that I can recognize it and how to find it when I have to write on command.

Let me break it now… this is what Czermynskalsky (omg that dude) would have referred to as the flow state. The rhythm is the key to finding the flow state, the rhythm of whatever it is that one is trying to do. There is a rhythm in everything, and that rhythm is flow.

Am I finished here? <=== not a rhetorical question.

I think this idea is worth a cold cup of coffee.