Non-stop

Why do you write like you're running out of time?
Write day and night like you're running out of time.

I locked myself in my bedroom for 30 hours. I started writing at noon on Tuesday. I ate a bunch of toffee and outlined as if my life depended on it. In some ways, it did. I hated myself and tried to find the muse. She didn't come. But I can push something out still. I wrote torturously. One page per hour. Second guessing ninety times per hour. Back to the drawing board. I was supposed to finish by night. I texted Puhg to bring some Pringles. I didn't come out for dinner. I ate half the can and he told me I'd regret the rest. He went to take a shower and I downed them quickly. I fell asleep defeated, woke at 3 AM, still stuck in bed, I wrote more. I don't know when I was awake or not. I went to the bathroom around 8. At 11:30 I saw the finish line. I sent a draft at 12:05. I ran two miles at the gym feeling almost free. I rewarded myself with my monthly mani pedi. I felt like part of the world again. I had a kale salad for dinner and saw Hamilton. I was worried I wouldn't be able to focus on it because my insides were shredded. My brain toasted. More nerves firing than anyone would need in a cyclone. It took me a minute, but I could embrace it. Thank you, me. Still hard to stay out after curtain call. I wound up again trying to sort through dialogue on the train ride home. I'm never not working.

I am exhausted. Still. I could have thrown away my shot. Someone ("important") asked to see my sample. It wasn't ready. I asked for more time. Is it better to get it in and fine or waiting for it and...maybe it will still be fine. I don't know. It's hard not to feel embarrassed. It's hard not to wonder if it will always feel this way and if I should get out now. We get into this because we love it. But do we?

Before bed I ask Puhg's sister if she empathizes with Eliza when she asks Alexander to go away. I see that so clearly. Leave him alone. He has a country to create. You're ignorant if you believe in vacations. But, she countered, that's when everything fell apart. When he didn't get a break. Never gonna be president now.

Coincidence, Convo, Computer

On my bike path from home to school.

1. "Bloodshot" came up on my iPod while I was biking in this sunset last week. It was too coincidental NOT to take a photo.

2. This morning--

CHELLE: I have an apple juice problem. I love it so much. If I had my way, I'd be hooked up to an apple juice IV at all times.
ME: You wouldn't even be able to taste it.
CHELLE: I'd be fine just knowing it was running through my veins.

3. My computer is having some malfunction junctions, which is annoying. But, then, I think about all the things that make my computer tick, and how many of them are tiny and plastic and WHOA all the stuff my computer actually does for being a machine I can just carry around and how I schlep it all over tarnation in the sun on my back and I'm like, "How does it still work at all?"

It's just so high, and I'm so tired.
Come on look up at the bloodshot sky--
the clouds are all on fire.