Ink Tea Stone Leaf

The other day, I didn’t feel very well. I had made no progress on my work, and I was distracted by everything that came my way, to say nothing of the things that I sought out to distract myself on purpose. My eyes hurt from looking at screens. I’d drunk too much caffeinated tea and eaten too little food. I was, you might say, emotionally unstable.

We all have days like that, don’t we? I hope so, because for a few hours I was really hating myself for being especially useless, untalented, and lazy. There was a lot of staring at the ceiling. I’d hate to think I was the only one who had days like that.

I used to have days like that while I was on the clock and responsible for the education and civil behavior of other people’s children. So, I guess I should count my blessings. Item one: my sense of self-worth is not currently tied to some kid (who I barely know) making the choice not to actively sabotage their own learning.

Fortunately, even in my darkest gloom, there was an escape hatch, and all I had to do was remember that it was there and reach for it. I picked up a book – a real book, with pages and everything – and I read it. It was finished in two days. I ate the damn thing up, and while I did I actually felt good about myself. It made me feel like I was learning and engaged with something other than inconsequential memes or petulant nihilism.

Now I need to work on my book, though. Writing also makes me feel good about myself, but it’s harder than reading and always takes longer. That’s the way of things. I don’t have anything more to say about that.

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That’s what I wrote before I scheduled this post to publish tomorrow morning. Since then I got so frustrated with my inability to do anything worthwhile that I left my house and walked for over an hour, up and down my very hilly neighborhood until my legs hurt and I was all sweaty. I should have checked the time when I left, but it must have been over an hour, since it supposedly takes a half hour to walk home from the transit center, and that’s just where I wound up after my many wanderings. Then I took a shower and lay in bed for a while.

So I did have something more to say after all, it seems. It’s just that it’s of no interest to anybody but myself. Nobody cares what some random somebody with a blog who wants to write novels for a living does when he loses his temper at himself. But he’s got to blog about it anyway, because it’s all he’s got and nobody reads it anyway. This is all just void, and these are hardly screams.

I’ve done my best to put myself back on the right track for the time being. I deleted my account on the website that was sucking up my time and attention. At least I think I did; at any rate I’m logged out and my password doesn’t work anymore, so I guess that did the trick. I shaved my face so I don’t look like I haven’t shaved in over a week. I drank a big glass of water, since I haven’t had anything to drink since before I went walking today. Then I opened this post back up so that my fingers would start typing, typing anything at all. Clickety-clack-clack-clack. I’d buy a new keyboard because this one is almost two decades old and somewhere one of its “legs” broke off, but I fear that’s just the consumerist propaganda telling me to stave off frustration by spending money. I’ve done enough of that in my life.

I was doing pretty well on an antidepressant before I recently doubled my dose. When I first went on it, I hadn’t even really thought I was “depressed,” but if anything I felt more focused and motivated on that lower dose. The doctor suggested I try going up a notch, and let her know if the change was working for me, or if it seemed to increase side effects like headache or irritability. Now I’m writing posts like this, so I guess I’ve got to write her a note about that. “Irritability” seems right on the mark.

My neighborhood looks fairly nice, by the way. Lots of lovely houses, with yards that are mostly tidier than mine, because they hire professional landscapers, or they just work better with their hands than I do. The only thing my hands do well is clickety-clack. It’s a blue sky sort of day, and since it’s early fall now the air is cool enough that I didn’t get too hot climbing up and down hills. This is the sort of day when you really want to schedule your unscheduled got-to-get-out-of-my-fucking-house walks.

I did read more of another book when I got back, by the way. Fantastically, it still did make me feel a little better. Books really can do that. But at a certain point, you just have to face the problem head on. The problem is I’ve written less than half of what I could have this week because my mind is clogged up with irrelevancies and ephemera. So enough of those, right?

I’m going to have to stop writing this particular piece, however, because my left hand has been taken captive by a green cheeked conure who likes skritches behind his ears very much, and ranting about how angry you are that you’re depressed (of all things!) is harder when you can only use your right hand. No, it’s not an innuendo, it’s a parrot.

I’ll have something better for the void next weekend.