Tag Archives: writing

The Day of Reflective Goals & Paper Notebooks

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I came in from sitting on the porch and thought, “I don’t ever write anything down anymore.”

My younger self came supplied with notebook and nice pens, ever ready in the bag of dreams, to whip out and.  I haven’t kept a serious notebook now in, what?  3 or 4 years.  I found myself immediately blaming the computer for making me a slave to it, and thinking the only suitable format for writing was kibbling on it’s square letters and symbols. 

But it’s not the computer’s fault I don’t write. It’s my own fault.  Or. It’s circumstances.  You know.  

I wish there were some form of magic where I could just say snap and everything be way way easier.  It’s nine o’clock and I am exhausted.  I want to write more.  

I’m challenging myself to write something. Anything for the next 5 days.  I am always so long winded I intimidate myself.  But. I need to practice 30 minute writing spells for the next five days to complete a goal for myself. I’m not really a goal maker, so this is a big deal. Because you’re supposed to set goals, right?  

I remember being taught that in elementary school, but it didn’t translate to real life for me.  

I need to start making goals and lists. Crossing things off gives you a buzz, right? Sure. I’ll believe that.  

But I’ll need a notebook for the lists and goals.  I need to start writing more. With a pen.  Like I did in my previous life. 

Before children and struggle.  

Anyways. That’s all for the night. 

 

Wanted: Stardust Honing Business Skills Stapler

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I’ve decided today that I need to go to business school.  I need to rack up a bunch of debt, become more poor than I already am, and insert myself into a place that seems unfamiliar.  Numbers and deadlines, hosiery and telephones, oblong tables and elevators.

I don’t fancy myself a business type, but I do covet the fancy business skills that I lack. Perhaps, I just need some assistance digging the skills out and shining them.  Business school would be an expensive shovel, but  a costly twenty thousand dollar dig may motivate me to more assertively advance my creative endeavors. Is there perhaps some sort of business skills stapler out there with the capacity to attach the needed attributes for my toils? The endeavors crawl into me and creep out constantly, with no fruits to bear. I’ve got dreams to remember, but a reluctance to heels.

There is something that holds me back from producing my visions, my art.  I stew my musings in private.

I am a musician. I am a songwriter.  I have written 91 songs.  I have recorded less than a quarter of those songs.  Or, to be more clear, there are rough practice recordings, but in 10 years I have not released one damn full length record.  I was 25 when my old band, Scarlet Harlot released some overly rushed to be produced album.

A year and a half ago my band released an EP, but even that is three years old.  Yeah. It took  a year and a half after the recording sessions to release the album as an EP.  To be fair, my band was rolling and recording and ready, when I zapped into super secret hermit mode upon finding out I was toting a baby bomb.  Stopped recording. Stopped practicing.  Stopped everything. Unplanned pregnancy equals freak out time. I froaked. (yes.)

But, still, that is just an excuse.  I’ve had hundred of them. Like: I don’t have any money to start this. Or: I’m really sad.  And: It’s not perfect yet, it’s not ready. Also: I’m having a kid. Then: I’m having another kid. Yes: I smoked too many cigarettes, and my throat hurts.  Excuses, excuses.

Would going to business school rid me of the procrastination? Is there some sort of insertable drive I might acquire where I stop the excuses and continue a vision through to a fully explored path?

There is some button that I just don’t have.  I am a damn dreamer is my damn problem. And I’m okay with that, is my other one.  Does business school provide one with some sort of hammer or rope with which to exact a swing of upward mobility? Is there some ladder I can scale to reach the next level of continuous motivation to achieve my dreams?

Perhaps I should just get a payday loan, risk the interest on that junkie, get a bunch of money and record a bunch of albums and publish my children’s book.   Would the interest on a payday loan be of enough motivation to me  to right my wrongs and ring my mid-life bell into productivity?  35 is mid-life, y’all. Should I go business school? Or get some seedy loan? Should I start a letter writing campaign?  Start a youtube channel?

What the hell am I waiting on?

I have a job. I work for great people. It’s not a job that I will advance in;  the advancing of position has never been of much importance to me. I’m not that type of personality where I need the best job with the best money. But realistically, I could use more money.  Because. I don’t have health insurance.  I can’t afford it. I want it.  I need it. If something goes wrong with me, I’m gonna die.

I don’t feel like I’m poor, but I am.  I have great talents that could make me less poor, if only they were asserted.  I want better for my daughters.  We are not at the bottom of the barrel, barely. We budget and make do. But, there needs to be a change!

When do I start? Who’s in charge of pressing the start button?

Me?  Yes. Me. Why haven’t I hit it yet?  Maybe I’m about to. Is there some strange moon tonight?

Ho-boy. I looked it up. Yes. Yes, it’s the stars.  Always the stars!

The moon is in Aries.

I’m born on the last day of Pisces.You know what that means, right?

In astrological terms, if you’re born on the last day of a zodiac sign, you’re born on a cusp. Meaning, that you are strongly influenced by the next zodiac sign but you’re NOT the next zodiac sign. Pisces are dreamers, engulfed by emotion. Aries are do-ers, riddled with ambition.  Technically, I’m supposed to have some Aries traits up in my mix, somewhere.  They were prevalent in my younger life, but long since laid dormant. My Pisces particulars are evergreen.

Tonight, them traits are on alert. I am beaming. I am scratching at the bit.

I kid you not, my steady gears are turning, I feel a wriggling, I feel a jump coming.  I mean, seriously? SERIOUSLY?  Today I began to think about something that I HAVE NEVER EVER CONSIDERED.  Business school!! Business school???   Cutthroats and stressors, brown noses and bitches.

I don’t need business school to do what I need to do.  You don’t need business school training to just begin, do you?  Follow through is an exertion that does not require a life ladening loan.

You just need the moon to come round right. Right?

Dear Moon, don’t you go. Glow, glow down here. Dear Moon, you got a hold on some soul up there. Dear Moon, could you  phase me to the next stage of my life?  Dear Moon, I got a ladder, gonna climb up to you. Dear Moon, I got a rope, gonna tie on to you . Dear Moon, would you swing me on into the light?  I’m a shadow to shine over, I’m a shock of a shell.  Dear Moon, you kept beaming, lives been through hell. Dear moon, if there’s a man in you, would you please be mine?

House & Heyday

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I didn’t get that big old house I put a picture of on here.  Naw, man.  I was put off from the moment I saw that the cellar door was rotted off, the screen door was busted to pieces, and there was 1983 blue carpet terrorizing the floor.  Since 1918 is a long time to be a house, and though I enjoyed the slanted playhouse like closets, and underlying charm the house was breathing, I found the price too steep for the problems the house was facing.

First off, the first floor toilet had a sink in its lap.  I don’t know how any overweight person would have ever managed to sit on the pot with their whole bottom touching the toilet seat. There would have had to of been some sort of leaning, having to use the sink as an arm rest to squeeze a dimpled bun on that there john. The prospect for having a place to rest a pillow whilst pissing in my rallying heyday may have seemed a plus, but I’m a lightweight infrequent drunk nowadays, and find no ironic desire to pass out on the potty.

I was also hesitant to live on Florida Street.  Everyone knows that the state of Florida is the oddball burden of the South, and the street of Florida in Greensboro is the same in that it has had a reputation in years past to be a bit of a bungler.  When I first came to college in the city in 1996, a third year student warned me not wander that road, it was the heart of danger in its neighborhood.  Years, however, have softened Florida Street slightly, and Glenwood has grown into a vibrant, artistic,  multicultural, centrally located, affordable conglomerate of houses with ghosts of history in them.  It was not the reputation of Florida Street that chased me away from residing in the house, rather, it was the noise and traffic that maraud the asphault on that path on a daily basis. The city buses, the school buses, the bus stop dwellers, the boomboom big tire cars, the high pitched crotch rockets.  I told myself three years ago I never wanted to live on a bus line again.  Buses are squeaky and they run at unenthusiastic early hours. Florida Street is too bussy for my all encompassing approval.

The strikes on the house could empty a pack of matches.

Billed as a four bedroom house, the house was more like two and a half bedrooms. The “bedroom” on the main floor was a walk through room with two doors, one which led to the living room, the other to the entrance hall.  It was included as part of the path to the kitchen from the front of the house.  There was no closet in it.  There was also no closet in “bedroom” number two upstairs.  Couple that with the fact that bedroom number two was the width of a full size mattress, no wider, and the length of two mattresses laid end to end, and you’d have yourself three more strikes.

With my mind made up and knowing this was not the house for me,  the realtor bumping his head on the stooped door frame as he showed me the bathtub-less, shower only, upstairs restroom reinforced my decision. I was taller than the realtor, and I would have cursed myself every time I bumped my head on that door  frame had I decided take up residence in that hole.

Plus there had to be lead paint on and mice holes in the walls.  House that old? For sure.

The grout in the bathroom tile had seen way less dirty days.

The front fence entry was falling over.

The porch swing was raised too high to climb into easily.

The yard was sticks, rocks, and mud.

The windows were old and would have let all the expensive gas heat slip out without so much as a whisper of warning.

The kitchen was possessed by a stained and oddly cornered oven. There were gaps in the cabinets. There was no dishwasher.  There was no place for a table. I was scared to look under the sink.

The price was delusional.  I wouldn’t pay more than $600.00 a month for a place in such dire need for  revamp.  Centrally located or not.  Just because something  is cute on the outside does not mean the  inside holds an inviting chamber. I should know that from my dealings with men.

It’s easier to run from a terrible cute house than a terrible cute man, though. It’s plain to see the insides of a cute house, but there will be trouble discovering the make up of a man.

Anyways. I ran from the house. It’s not me, house, it’s you.

I found a newly remodeled three bedroom house in the same neighborhood for 85 dollars less per month than what the Florida Street house was going for.  It’s not as big a house, it doesn’t have much of a yard. But it’s clean and cute inside and out.  I packed seven boxes today.  I’ll be moving round July 15th.

I will miss being close to my Mama and Daddy, but feel relief that I am actively ridding myself of this sense of my life in stall mode.  I’d dropped everything to figure out this whole single mama kingdom, and I hope to gain a part of myself back with this move to my old town. Happier days, are you sure to come?

Shleep Naked

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It’s 11:28 and I’m tired. All the good writing hours have escaped me and I am lying in bed unclothed, with a cold quilt to keep the summer sweats at bay. I feel like closing my eyes.

My brain is empty of subject, I just keep saying “write” over in my head. Write, write. I’m dead. My brain is dead. Still I continue, hoping to squeeze something from the effort.

Bah! My whole person is a sheep beh-eh-ehgging to slumber. Put me out to pasture, I will wallow in the silks until the sun rises.

Official Reading of the Scroll

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I told myself this morning that I would go to bed at eleven tonight. It’s now two minutes past midnight. I told myself two hours ago that I would start writing this blog post, but I didn’t start til now. I told myself last night that I would get up at six this morning, but I got up at eight. I’ve told myself again tonight that I will get up at six in the morning. And I’m going to. It’s six minutes past midnight. This is my anti-procrastination writing blog. I am going to change my life for the better.