Thinkin' about it

So a long as I'm here, I might as well continue. Does that expression even exist. Might as well ...?
I have a tendency to say mine as well which surely can't mean anything whatsoever. Are we all becoming illiterate. Anything that is not in the electronic dictionary does not exist or it may, but we don't really know do we.

So the idea of the blog is simply begin the practice of writing again. When I first began college back in '86, I had an English teach who insisted that we all keep a journal. At the the time, I used to write as little as possible. I hated writing and thought that whatever I did write was usually crap. And this went for everything. I'm not even talking about writing something that would be read by complete strangers. That was beyond thinking about. But even writing to a grandparent or writing a page for an essay was agony for me.

And so this teacher wanted us to write something, every day. Somehow I must have understood that it was important, so I threw myself into it. This was before PCs were common. Yes they existed, and I think there was even one of the colleges which I got accepted to which gave one out to every freshman. But almost no one I knew had one. I had a Smith Corona word processor. This was top of the line stuff. My parents got it for me as gift when I left for University (just went googling for a picture, but I couldn't find anything ... at least not in 30 seconds which is the most time we can take for anything today).
It was just a typewriter that hooked up to a screen (green lettering I think). There was a very simple menu. You could write and edit on the screen. Edit being a very big word for erase, retype, maybe change the spacing between lines so that the five pages you wrote would stretch out to the 10 you were supposed to write. You could save what you wrote on these mini casettes. The damn thing may still be in parent's crawl space.
And so I would sit there in a position not so different as I find myself now. The window to the left of me. I'm facing the wall and typing. I would listen to the traffic on Broadway and smoke. I had promised myself to quit when I went to school, but my roomate had done the same. So we both started smoking again. At first it was such a trial to write anything down. I would type out nonsense and then erase it. I would look for any excuse to something else. I would smoke another cigarette. But at the same time, there I was in front of that blinking green cursor. But at some point is just began to flow. I would write and write. The words would come streaming from my fingers. I could spend the entire night.
Things have not changed so much. Here I am again; in front of my Mac. The keyboard is wireless and there is mouse to the side. But the problem is the same. It has been 20 years since I wrote like that. It has been 10 years since I wrote a poem. I have tried a number of times in the past few years to force it out again. But now I don't have the choice.
Alone again at 40. Yeah yeah, sniff sniff. But what do you want. Alone like a fucking student again. At my desk ... nothing but my fingers and my dick. My mind is afloat. I need to anchor it down. I think the best way to deflate my ego is to piss out the words. So that is what I will do. I will write. I will bang the keys. I will trumpet out the thoughts spit them onto the screen. Some may have genius, but most of what I've gotten in my life was gotten by working at it. It's not a moral thing. I'm not better or worse than anyone, but I don't get anywhere except through sweat and effort. So the effort begins here ... in my fingers and my mind. Nobody has to read any of this, because they are only the scratches. But I figure, I will keep them on line. Publish or die? What a joke. Even my cat can publish today. But by putting it out there already, I will keep away from the poison of going back to edit. When I'm ready to write something for real, I will worry about the right words and the right rhythm and getting everything in line and not repeating myself. But for now ... spleen and bile; spit and vomit; piss and cum. Let it out my boy, just let it all out.