The Realignment

There's something in the air up here at W6HQ, because R. and I are definitely feeling some kind of change. Man, I am bored with the inside of my head. Today was my first day off from work and other obligations for quite a while, and I couldn't even concentrate on reading a book (the new Denis Johnson, which so far I like), let alone writing one. Instead I paced around the house, checked my email over and over, and undertook obscure DIY projects, then got grumpy and unpleasant when everyone came home.

I think--and I am taking these words right out of Rhian's mouth--I am sick of this era and all its delusions. I am ready to embrace the next one, or create it, if that's what it takes. I even have in mind the novel that will represent it--the characters have been pacing in my mind for a few months.

But before that can happen, I have to finish revising the book that the era I can't stand anymore brought into being. It's a peculiar, rather short, unreliable-narrator story about a guy in the woods, and it's kind of about the Iraq war as well; and the first few drafts basically didn't work at all. Rhian, after reading it, actually told me to give up on it. (She knew I wouldn't, though.) I think I know how to do it, but to do so will require that I sop up the last dreggy half-inch of inspiration left in the poisoned well of the past couple of years, and Christ, that doesn't sound too appealing.

And yet I'm excited to start. Classes end this week; I will begin on Monday, if not sooner. There's something about wrapping your arms around a big hairy beast and gradually wrestling it to the ground...the weight of the work feels right, somehow. I am hoping this project will create enough momentum to propel me into this next phase, whatever it happens to be.

Meanwhile I have deleted the entire "Politics" folder from my Firefox toolbar. There is just no point in my keeping track of this crap anymore. Hillary Clinton said today that she would bring Colin Powell onto her advisory team, and reading this, I realized that my mental health would soon begin to suffer if I kept caring about the hopeless machinations of the vain, arrogant, calculating and cowardly. If these wankers want to stick with the glorious Bush years, they can have 'em. In a couple of months, I'll even have a book to dedicate to them. Good riddance!