August 17, 2006

10:07 p.m.

Pit and Pendulum -- Discounted When You Buy the Set

Everything has swung back from a couple of months ago, when I was so enthusiastic about all my projects. Everything. I watch as my enthusiasm wanes in every corner, crowded by confusion and doubt and a need for encouragement and inspiration that I'm not getting. Hesitation is the word of the day.

Things have not folded under yet by any means, but all I really want to do is curl up and nap for about six weeks.

A week in Maine produced no songs; not a note. We did a lot of rehearsing, and it isn't a bad thing that I don't have a story that needs telling right now. I've written so much in our past retreats that we haven't even worked it all up yet. But it seems part of the general malaise, this nonproductivity at a time when I need to get productive again and push, push. I still have plans to unveil, work to do. My planets are all wrong, something. Is askew. I was walking along the high, raised path near the local airport, next to the Mansfield Hollow Lake which is very beautiful at sunset, and it occurred to me that someone should pay me just for my presence. When I visited with Steve recently, we met a friend of his at the ice cream place in Northampton and he introduced me. They chatted for a few minutes while I ate my ice cream in silence, and then said their goodbyes. I smiled and said nice to have met you, and thought nothing more of it. Tonight on the phone Steve said he'd seen his friend again somewhere, and the guy had said, "Oh! Your friend Bornearly is so gorgeous! I couldn't take my eyes off her! There's something so charismatic about her!" I laughed because I'd not said word one nor done anything to distinguish myself in those few minutes. It was flattering in a silly way. I'm the one whom no one notices in the group because I'm quiet and I don't give a shit about group dynamics. Anyway, as I walked into the sunset by the lake I laughed again and thought, Why doesn't someone just hire me to be beautiful and charismatic? Isn't my presence alone worth a good wage? Why must I fuss with all these unlucrative, artsy long-shot projects when I could simply be entertaining someone with my company and having all the bills paid? Why wasn't I born a shallow, busty extrovert willing to live comfortably off a sugar daddy or two?

It is with these morose and regretful thoughts that I've put off any actual work I should be doing the rest of this week. I'm on strike.

I'm supposed to call James back this evening and I don't even want to talk to him. I spent the entire week in Maine missing him, writing him a running monologue of our time there, taking pictures to send him, and now I'm convinced he's going to drive me crazy within two months. Or I'm going to become such a lameass, I'll stop making books, writing songs, and taking care of business, that I'll be like this stranger, I won't even know who I'm offering to be for him. My identity will be just this shadow that doesn't do or accomplish anything. All I'll be able to do is move in with Rose and become old with her and her dog and three cats. If she stays single for any length of time this time, that is. It's days like this that a regular, boring job seems attractive. God knows I've had enough of them and hated them. But: Show up, do the thing, go home. No further effort is required. Collect paycheck. Subscribe to cable. Believe me, hustling isn't romantic and, this week, it isn't even interesting.

Or: Show up, be charismatic and beautiful, witty and charming, cook a little. Collect paycheck. Maybe there's some old, impotent codger I could amuse for money. Buh- huh-huh-huh-HUHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH! I want an easier liiiiiiiiife! My head is full of cobweeeeeeeeebbbs! I can't think clearly and I'm in a fuuuuuuuuunnnnk!

(Sigh.)

What a stupid complaint.