Stuck

I haven't written—anything—in a while.

In the middle of October, I traveled for a week and a half. I visited Debbie at her home with her family (Mattie and her husband and their two boys, Debbie's grandsons); then I flew on to a city in another state, where Marie was attending a conference. I got back home a week ago.

My last post for this blog was something I wrote on my phone, during the outbound flight. My last post for the Patio was back in July, when Joe Biden was still a candidate for re-election to the Presidency. You may remember that I have a blog about professional topics, under my real-life name, but I wrote that ahead through the end of October so that it would still post while I was out of town. Consequently I have written nothing since that post introducing Fawn. Nothing in the last 18 days. Nothing.

I've actually had someone contact me asking for an article about a professional topic, one that he'll pay me for. He emailed me while I was traveling, so I made my excuses but said I could work on it when I got home. He accepted that. So I should have been writing it all last week.

No such luck.

The last time I complained about this kind of stasis, I think I blamed it on drinking too much. This time, I really think it has mostly been Twitter. I've been reading it for election news, and then once I open it I can't pry myself away from it except occasionally to eat or shit. Or sleep. So it's definitely a kind of addictive behavior.

And it's not like I've got nothing to say. My visits with Debbie and Marie left me with thoughts that I could flesh out. I've got a number of politico-philosophical ideas for the Patio that I jotted down during my travel last month (though some of the ideas had been brewing for a while before then). Or I could get some professional blog posts in the queue, so that I'm not caught short when my current queue runs out. Or I could … you know … write the article that I promised to write last week and that I'm going to get paid for! There are lots of possibilities.

Instead, I just piss away my days on Twitter.

Last week, in his "Magic Monday" column, John Michael Greer wrote, "Most people who fail at life choose to fail." I have no doubt that he's right, at least at some level; and I've been trying to figure out what my own motivations might be. That would doubtless give me even more material to write about, but I'm not satisfied with any of my answers yet.

Also, my cough is coming back. I was expecting it in the spring, since I had it during the spring of 2023 and it seems to be related to seasonal allergens in the air. But this year the spring came and went with no sign of it. Only now I've got it in the fall. One more reason to feel sorry for myself, I guess. I know that treating it with whiskey never solves anything, so maybe I should try medication. Maybe tomorrow.

Also I hope I can start myself writing again.