it’s january, so i’m taking a break from alcohol. it rained last night, so january’s not exactly “dry” though, is it? ha ha ha. i didn’t sleep well. as i was drifting off my girlfriend awoke me asking “what was that??” i only caught the last mental impressions of some kind of tap sound, or banging sound, according to my girlfriend’s characterization. but our dog hadn’t reacted so it must not have been anything? as i lay in bed i convinced myself that lurking in my kitchen was a ghost or some other malignant entity. the only thing to do with such a presence is to banish it, which i did by telling myself “that’s ridiculous,” as though i don’t suspect that such things may occur.
then i awoke again after what felt like a long, convoluted, involved period of dreaming. what the dream was i don’t remember. i’m working on keeping a dream journal, as a way of bringing my subconscious and my waking conscious more in alignment. but last night was a difficult, fragmented visit to dreamland. because it felt like so much had happened already, i was sure it was nearing morning, perhaps an hour until my alarm was set to go off. nope, it was only about 130am. i spent much of the rest of the night tossing and turning, sweating, slipping in and out of fitful drowses and disjointed dreams, the only details of which that i remember involve me sing-shouting olivia rodrigo’s “get him back,” and purchasing a leather joint holder for my girlfriend’s friend, who doesn’t smoke, while longing to be able to smoke myself, which i haven’t done in about six months now.
when my alarm went off at 6, the finer details of all this REM sleep dissipated, leaving me disoriented. usually when i dream and wake up i feel refreshed and aware, even when the dreams aren’t pleasant. but last night black bagged me, kicked me in the gut, and dumped me on the side of the road, a road i knew i lived on, but couldn’t tell in which direction i lived.
so i was tired. and because my day job situation is all fucked up, since the library where i work flooded, things are generally unsettled. and when things are unsettled and i’m tired, every self-defeating, discouraged thought i’ve ever had returns with a vengeance. i’ll never finish anything worthwhile. if i do, i’ll never get it published. if i do, no one will ever read it. because no one reads this blog. because i never finish anything worthwhile on it. because i don’t have enough time, because writing something worthwhile requires losing yourself a little, being Deep in the Shit of my subconscious, something that’s hard to do when i know i have to be at work in an hour. david lynch quoted someone, a childhood friend’s dad who was a painter if i remember correctly, as saying that in order to get one good hour of painting done, you need four hours of free time. now, this is also about the fact that painting requires a lot of set up and materials, which doesn’t translate to writing, but the spirit of the point still stands.
i told my friends, who number among the few consistent readers of this blog, that i was discouraged, that i didn’t think blogging was doing what i need for it to do, namely get attention for the thing that i believe myself highly capable at, namely writing. there’s no easy way around getting eyes on the art; it’s been a problem for artists for at least two centuries, when art became an expression of an individual’s subjectivity. it requires a considerable amount of luck, but also “shameless persistence,” a phrase i came across in, i think it was, a blurb from percival everett, on a book i don’t remember the title of. “shameless persistence” is now my mantra (though i don’t do mantra meditation, i “just sit” zazen). “brazenness” is the energy i’m bringing into 2024.
in addition to those things, art also requires sacrifice, and what i’m realizing is that what’s most readily sacrificed, and most valuably sacrificed, is being reliable at my day job. and it’s looking like i’ll be afforded a considerable leash here in the next few months, being allowed to “work” from home for several hours a week, mostly putting together orders for new books. that means i won’t “have to be” anywhere for work a lot of the time. and my boss was spread thin before our library flooded, so now he’s too preoccupied to worry much about me, because he trusts me, because i’m reliable.
there are stories i need to edit, stories i need to draft. there’s a mess of notes i need to decide what to do with. i need to stop placing too strict demands on myself and just play around and have fun because having fun and playing around is what gets you chicks dude.
what’s up with all my dreams about smoking weed?
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