For the past few weeks I couldn't seem to write anything worth mentioning, even legible. So, like any level-headed wannabe writer out there, I sought the wisdom of a little-known wise man named Google for what to write when you can't write. It seemed like a good idea at the time, but as far as good ideas go, this one was quite tedious, because the results were quite enormous. I combed through dozens of advice columns out there. Each one seemed more like the previous one. Like they were copied from a central location and edited to suit a specific need. Perhaps it's a case of great minds… we may never know.
But amidst the ocean of results, one captured my attention. It was simple and straight to the point, kind of like boobs when you meet a girl for the first time (or whenever you meet girls, because you're a boob person): they're either there or not. (Why do I feel that that metaphor has crushed and is now burning?)
While my procrastination takes the cake for my shortcomings as a writer, my zoning out in the middle of almost anything comes in a close second. Anyway, the point that stood was: "If you can't write anything, then write about that…" or something like that… my short-term memory isn't that sharp and I'm not very good at jotting things down and I don't know how to fetch my browser history and I'm a lousy liar. So here I am, writing about how I can't write or won't write because aside from not having anything to jot down, I'm also a serial procrastinator. I'll do anything I can not to do something I have to! Does that make sense? I hope so.
What I realized about my self-imposed inability to write is that of all the reasons why I stop writing or am unable to write can be blamed on my excellent procrastination skills. I'm so good at procrastination that I'll put off procrastinating so that I can procrastinate tomorrow, or perhaps the day after, because today I have massive boobs to stare at. Boob staring is a war I'll never win (or lose, depending on how you look at it).
I can't, however, take all the blame for my inconsistencies. Sometimes it's my word processor's fault. Yes, really! Sometimes we—my processor and I—can't seem to agree on a font. I try Tahoma but when I save my drafts, they revert to Calibri; weird bug there. I usually work that out by formatting my hard drive, but conveniently forget to back up my drafts in a separate drive, so all of my drafts go the way of shit. At other times, MS Word won't let me make up my own words and we spend close to an hour exchanging grammatical snaps and I'll be like what the hell do you know, you're just a tired piece of software!
At one point it degenerates to "yo mama" snaps, which I'm greatly inept at. But I'm grateful because I now know that "grateful" only has one "l" and does not have anything to do with "great." Also I now know that the opposite of "inept" is not "nept." And it's why "nept" is zigzagged in red or whatever you call that wobbly line beneath it.
While my procrastination takes the cake for my shortcomings as a writer (if I'm indeed a writer), my zoning out in the middle of almost anything important comes in a close second. I go to my "happy place" when the conversation goes south, when the sex is lousy (even when it's with me), when the sermon seems to be taking too long, or when the situation just calls for the happy place.
Like a math class. Math causes me endless grief and sometimes itchy balls. Don't ask how, I can't explain the grief either. (Itchy balls, however, can perhaps be traced to a hobo I slept with.)
For instance, "If 5 men can till a piece of land in 5 hours, how long would it take 15 men to accomplish the same task?"
I'd never ask how the question is important to anyone, because it's in the curriculum—it has to be important to someone. What I do (and I blame my subconscious here) is amplify the problem, then have an imaginary argument with the teacher.
I pose the theory that you have to consider a lot of variables, like the weather, the men in question, the mood of said men, and so forth. For instance what if the initial five men were hard-working—you know, the diligent type—but the current batch is just five lazy dumbasses? What happens then? What if one of the fifteen calls in sick? What if one of the fifteen shows up with a tractor instead of a hoe? What if one guy shows up with a rake instead of a hoe? What if the guys with the hoes beat up the guy with the tractor for his perceived assholery? It goes without saying that the five lazy dumbasses would not participate in the beating ‘cause, well, they're lazy and dumb and probably don't have hoes! What if the rake guy is fired? What if it rains?
What if it all happens in one sitting: among the fifteen there are five lazy dumbasses, one shows up with a tractor (and a friend with a tractor), another comes with a rake instead of a hoe, another calls in sick, some beat up the tractor guys, and the rake guy is fired then it rains? What happens then, do they come tomorrow?
Okay, maybe I get why I have a hard time coming up with something to write—my brain is either a mess, or too awesome to deal with.
Oh and by the way, about the fifteen guys, what if they come tomorrow and it rains again? Or what if they never show up in the first place? Although you might dismiss my suppositions as mere paranoid bullshit, you have to consider one scenario that no one (except me) seems to pay attention to: If five guys can till the land in five hours, what do you need ten more guys for? They will only cause you grief. Five of them are lazy dumbasses, remember?
I can't deal with mathematics when I have more pressing issues to attend to. The hobo in the basement ought to be thrown out, and I should probably get my balls checked by a professional.
At the end of it all, I don't have writing problems anymore. Everybody goes home happy. Well, except for the fifteen guys. They kinda messed up.