Multitasking

Sisyphus is on my mind again—or still, if you prefer. Repetition, practice, focus, purpose. The myth stays with us because of its inherent truth.

* * *

Fuck, this is going to be one of those mornings. Let's try again.

“Hey, did you hear about Sisyphus?”

“No, what happened?”

“Dude, he rocks!”

See, now I'm not even trying. I'm shirking my obligation to keep pushing, even when the effort is futile.

* * *

Okay, so what is the alternative? Well, there's a photo of a purplish flower with dew on it at the top of the page. We could talk about that a little.

The photo was taken in Balboa Park, in February 2012. Those are exciting details. Don't you just feel like you were there?

* * *

The important thing about writing practice is to keep moving, keep pushing that rock up a hill. Sometimes you get so engrossed in the pushing that you forget about the rock. Other times, like know, you forget about everything but the rock.

* * *

Fine, we're stuck again. Keep pushing.

“Are we there yet?”

“No.”

“Are we there yet?”

The answer will always be no. Keep pushing.

* * *

Free advice: Don't be a writer. Find a different rock to push.

More free advice: Don't listen to free advice.

Wait, should I be charging for advice? If an advisor falls in the forest and no one is around, does it make money?

* * *

I was hoping for better when I'd started this 11 minutes ago. I'm always hoping for better. I'm also stubborn, so even though I scream a lot, I keep pushing—a whinier version of Sisyphus. I can push a rock and throw a fit at the same time. Multitasking!

Sometimes It's Okay to Like Other Things

I was on a train with impossibly large rooms. It was bigger on this inside, like a TARDIS. A friend had invited me to a party in one of the rooms, which was really a convention hall. There were dealers and people in costume, but I couldn't find my friend. I went upstairs and found myself sitting in a regular commuter train, with no sign of the convention I'd just been visiting.

I arrived in someone's backyard, possibly mine. It had gotten late and the stars were shining. Then they were falling on us. More accurately, Earth was falling onto them. We were told that this was the end of the world. I could see planets and galaxies hurtling toward us. They looked as though they would crash through our atmosphere and onto the ground, although that is of course impossible.

My father had turned into a dog, a very old pug who could speak. He trudged to a spot beneath a tree and plopped himself down onto the ground. I wanted to help him but couldn't. There was nothing I could do, and he told me it was okay.

* * *

“Frontiers are where you find them,” writes the professor on the chalkboard at the end of EverybodyWants Some!! Well, you find them everywhere, whether you want to or not: trains, conventions, apocalypses. A human turning into a dog?

It's all very weird, but as a character from that same movie says, “Embrace your inner strange.” Speaking as someone who specializes in the odd, that's not the worst advice I've heard.

Being adaptable is good, too. I'm still working on that part. A recurring line in a novel I'm writing is, “People like what they like.” Sure, but sometimes it's okay to like other things.

Hills and Fires

As long as I'm telling stories about events I barely remember, here's one that stays with me even though it feels more like a dream than like anything that ever happened. I must have been 10 or 11 years old at the time. I still swam—not competitively or anything, just in general—and a buddy and I were crawling our way around the bay when we looked back and saw the hillside above on fire.

It wasn't actually the hillside, of course, just a house on the hillside. But from the water it looked like everything was on fire. We raced back to shore to... I don't know what our plan was. Notify the authorities that there was a very obvious fire blazing directly above them?

I have no idea what happened after that. Presumably the fire got put out and we ate lunch. Then we went to high school, college, and who knows what other shenanigans. I got married, maybe he did. That guy was really smart, he probably rules the world by now. He was a helluva Dungeon Master, I'll bet he'd make a great CEO.

Another time, not very far from there, an RV caught fire. They had to close down the southbound side of the road, which caused major delays. What is it about hills and fires?

Years later that hill had other problems. I forget the specifics, but it had something to do with houses sinking into the ground, which wasn't quite as stable as developers—apparently to the satisfaction of the appropriate government agencies (notify the authorities!)—had suggested.

It occurs to me now that I should tell better stories. Be assured that if I knew better stories, I would in fact tell them. Truth be told, I probably do know better stories, I just can't remember them.

Four of Us

There were four of us in the car. There were always three or four of us, but that day it was four as we cruised around the west side, near Santa Monica and Westwood. We weren't going anywhere in particular, just killing time. Sometimes we'd hang out at the mall and play video games or watch girls we'd never get up the nerve to talk to. Other times we'd just drive and look for whatever.

This day we found something. She had blond hair and looked kind of cute from a distance. She needed a ride, and we had room if we squeezed together. I was driving, so it didn't affect me except that it was my car. Well, not mine exactly, but close enough. One of the guys in back was pretty small, so you could work pretty much anything or anyone in around him.

We started driving again, and that's when shit got weird. I don't remember who did the talking for us, but let's assume it was me.

“Where are you headed?”

“I just need a ride back to the hospital.”

Hospital? Okay. I glanced in the rear-view mirror. The small guy in back had shrunk into the corner like he was trying to become one with the seat, in the hope that he might somehow escape her presence. The other guy had widened his eyes, but he often did that. He usually looked surprised by what life had to offer, and probably was a lot of the time, which seems like a pretty great way to go through life.

“What hospital?”

“I don't know where it is.”

Turns out it was a mental institution of some sort and she'd gotten lost. We figured out where it was and took her there. Strange day.

It's Your Call

Some days you just stare hard at objects and wait for them to make sense. Other days everything seems hopelessly out of focus, so maybe you listen instead. Why are those birds making noise? What could they possibly have to say at this hour?

You wake up, look at the clock. It doesn't make sense.

You make coffee, pour some in a mug, and drink. The world remains blurry, you no longer hear birds. Where have they gone?

Every part of your house is familiar, and yet, you sometimes wonder if there's a meaning behind it all. Something hidden behind the surface. Probably not, you think, but what if there is?

The coffee is warm, thick, and bitter. You'd like that to be a metaphor for something, but it's just a drink to help get you going, help you think of metaphors.

You don't see the sunrise, you only see evidence of the sunrise. You think about the tight range of temperatures in which humans can survive, and the margin for error on this planet. We are highly improbable beings, but as empirical evidence suggests, not impossible. Hooray for us.

Birds don't make sense. Words don't make sense. We don't make sense.

Can you see me now? No, still out of focus. Still trying to understand clocks that measure time as though it were a meaningful element, as though it mattered in any real sense of the word, as though words themselves weren't also artificial constructs.

It's not that thinking, in and of itself, isn't good. That particular human activity has been largely beneficial over the years. It's just that maybe sometimes you want to turn off the switch and simply exist for a while. Or maybe stop using your words, lest you write something incomprehensible like this. It's your call.

Least Interesting Man in the World

I'm in the process of making what I hope will become beer. Right now it's sitting in a tub in a closet. Five gallons of liquid that should be drinkable in a few weeks. If not, at least we'll have a lot of it.

It gives me a new appreciation for professional brewers.

* * *

False start, let's try something else. I don't even know what, we're just trying to fill the quota here. Literally nothing of interest happened yesterday. I watched a documentary about a bicycle race, continued watching Bob's Burgers, and made progress on H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds.

I walked to a Japanese market on Convoy to pick up some sushi and chicken karaage for lunch, listened to a few podcasts, and fell asleep in a chair in the backyard.

Face it, I'm the least interesting man in the world.

* * *

Which brings us back to beer. Or advertising. Here's a question: Why is it that the shittiest products have the funniest commercials? I've often found myself laughing my ass off at a pitch for what looks like the most disgusting hamburger in the world, thinking a) that's hilarious and b) I don't ever want to use their restroom, let alone eat their food.

* * *

Still short of the quota. Hopelessly stuck. Need words... need... words. Dying out here.

This is the part where I'm grateful that nobody reads my practice sessions. Read the finished product, not the process, which is nastier than those hamburgers in the hilarious commercial.

Hamburgers. Sausage. How is the sausage made? Seems like there's a joke here, but maybe not.

* * *

That's the thing with beer. You make it, stash it away for a while, and hope it turns into something good. Just like writing.

Wrong Stop

The moment she stepped off the train, she knew she had gotten off at the wrong stop, but the engine had already started away and the conductor shook his head sternly as she yelled and waved her arms. Nothing looked familiar here, except for a few old relatives she hadn't seen in some time.

“Catherine!” one of them cried, an uncle on her father's side.

Yes, it really was him. And her uncle's son was there as well. They smiled at her and waved her over. She was glad to see them, but why were they here? Why was she here?

“Uncle Ray, what a delightful surprise!” she embraced her uncle, who wore an over-large sweater and smelled like pipe tobacco.

He held her hard and patted her on the back before letting go.

“And Edmund, so nice to see you as well.” He embraced her cousin, who smelled like the sea.

“How long has it been?” said Edmund.

She looked him over and scarcely recognized him. They had been close once as children, but aside from his gentle smile, he bore little resemblance to the young man she'd known then. Of course, she probably looked no more familiar to him.

“Too long,” she said, still trying to get her bearings.

“We were just going for dinner,” said Ray, “why don't you join us?”

She still couldn't figure out where she was or how she had ended up here (or how they had gotten here, for that matter), but food sounded good.

“I'd be happy to, uncle. Lead the way.”

He smiled and placed her hand in his. The three of them walked away from the train station, toward a small village just down the road. It looked nice. She hoped it was.