Whenever I'm feeling non-restless, being restless always seems like such a ridiculous situation to get myself into. There's, like, 3 million things I could do or think about or read and yet I'm sitting there whining about how restless I am (actually, being bored/restless is a kinda cool indicator for me because it means I have some vague level of health going on. When I'm wearing my golf ball neck, I'm always just a bit below par to get to the point of feeling like that. So it's kind of a good thing. I feel good today! No golf ball neck for Susie Q - rock on!)
Whenever I'm not bored, I always think, "Hey, next time you're bored, think about nature, or science - that'll spin you out and then you won't be bored anymore." But sometimes that doesn't work, 'cause I'm bored and uninspired, and so instead of thinking about black holes, I think of the periodic table. Which bores the shit out of me.
Sometimes, being bored or restless isn't a failure of imagination, it's a failure of overimagination. Tonight, coming home at 8pm, I wanted to walk into a house full of fire eaters, a cool old dude telling stories in the corner, a dancing bear, a naked man and a joint ... no, don't worry 'bout me. I'm not hoppin' back on that little drug waggon again - me knows what that little baby does to my creativity and I've just managed to get that little honey back; I'm not wasting that on nothin'
(I just noticed I've started talking like a black Southern American woman. I do that a lot, the whole launching into other accents thing. But I wonder - how many southern Americans do you think there are who are inserting portions of Strine into the middle of their blog posts? Not many, I would imagine :)
So anyway, this manic post and these dreams of coming home to a circus - I know what these are. These are just procrastination with a funny hat on that's got a flower sticking out the top, trying to fool me into thinking I'm entertaining myself when really ... I'm just procrastinating :) It's just my inner block artist trying to do it's usual thing. I have used so many things in the past to block myself - daydreaming (generally involving a member of the male species), food, drugs. Shiny things to distract myself from writing, like a magpie with a piece of chocolate bar wrapper. It's amazing what sneakinesses we develop to try to keep ourselves away from doing whatever it is that scares us, isn't it? We're wily, sneaky little beasties.
So, I'm going off to do this self-nurturing thing again that I've become so enamoured with - off to my writing room to light me some candles and do some Susie loving. My inner writer just loves all this self-nurturing stuff. She's gearing up to spring a few shit hot ideas on me 'cause she's starting to trust me now, see, 'cause I'm being all nice to her and cosseting her and letting her draw and colour-in and not going off half-cocked over men or food or drugs or nothin'. Uh-huh, *nods head sagely* If I knew this old self-nurture trick worked so well, and that it doesn't make me go blind the way they said it would if I gave myself some lovin', and if I'd known how much this 3 year old inner writer needs it, I would have done it years ago.So I am about to drag myself off to my ... what do you call the room where you write? I don't want to call it "the office" for obvious reasons, and "the spare room" sounds too unimportant but "studio" sounds too over-important. I am having trouble finding the right name for my writing room.
Hey, maybe it needs a people name! I've named my laptop (Samantha), and my car (Olive) , so why not my writing room? A writing room called Neville - what do you think?
Well, you can just sit back and imagine what the museum tour guides will call it in 50 years, after you are a famous Australian national treasure.
ReplyDelete"And this, ladies and gentlemen, is were it all happened, the place where she wrote THE book, that book that lives in our hearts, nay, the hearts of the entire world. The book that forever put an end to war and hunger. Ladies and gentlemen, I present you with -- the Realm of Discombobula. Look," he says, wiping tears from his eyes, "if you observe closely you can see the imprint of her first tipped sacred cow."
The deleted comment was mine -- I left one important word out and it ruined the whole thing :)
ReplyDeleteWhat about Sheila and Bruce? Or have I been watching too much Monty Python?
ReplyDeleteI feel like this sometime. My care is named Henrietta.
ReplyDeleteTyler - you're a scream, dude. It's so good having you around :) Yeah, you kinda need the "sacred" in there or it dredges up strange cow-hating connotations and then I'd get equivalently fatwahed by the Hindus
ReplyDeleteYou've been watching too much Monty Python :) I had to go look up the sketch you were referring to:
http://erewhon.homedns.org/pythonsketches/bruces.htm
Yolanda - Henrietta. That's a pretty stylish name for a car. I named my ex's car Craig, and every now and then he slips up and calls it Craig, which is really funny :)
My car is named Seiji (which is the word for celadon in Japanese and the car is the colour of celadon or green peas, which is less fun) and my computer is the Immaculate Contraption.
ReplyDeleteAnd don't diss the periodic table. Those are 109(at last count) of my closest friends.
Seiji - cool! Hehe. And hey, the periodic table is fine if I'm considering the effects of all of those things on my body, or what they all are and their differences, but just looking at it flat on a sheet and rote learning all the symbols and all that other dead goddamn boring stuff is a prime example of how Westerners can take something interesting and diverse and broad and in their desperate crazy need to categorise themselves to make themselves feel psychologically safer and less like they're gonna go flying off into the solar system through their existential angst have to make everything so goddamn boring in the process.
ReplyDeleteThat's all :)
I like Neville...it fits the very worldly atmosphere with the warm carmelly colors. It's funny that you took this because I was just cleaning off my writing desk tonight in preparation for a picture on my blog! It'll be a while before I actually put it up because that's just what I do. Take a picture and think about it for a couple of weeks. :)
ReplyDeleteI used to have a navy blue, 1970, navy blue VW Beetle that I named...drum roll please...Lucy :)
My favorite car beside the one my dad painted a house for when I was a senior in high school so I'd have a car to drive.
We had a footstool that looked just like a bear cub and was covered with sheep skin and we called it Edward.
I never thought to call a room a name, but I like the idea. I bet my kids would take better care of their room if they gave it a name. I'll have to mention it to them. You may have just championed the cause of floor space to walk across as opposed to tripping across...see how that works!? You never knew this would happen by naming your room did you?
Jennifer - wow, you're the naming queen! A foostool called Edward - cool! Hehe.
ReplyDeleteFloorspace to walk across - there's an idea! Neville still has papers all over him, they're just sorted a bit more.
Neville ... I'm still trying it on. Maybe I should call it a girl, seeing men are a distraction. Do you think? Maybe I could call her Dulcie. Hehe :)
Jeez Louise, Sue, it's only a chart! And I don't make my student memorize any of it. ;)
ReplyDeleteBy the way, when I was in Japan I had this futon/duvet that was big and lumpy. I called it Orson after Orson Welles because it was like sleeping with him.
Barbara - it's my anti-authoritarian convict streak - I'm just adverse to charts :)
ReplyDeleteOrson - hehe :)
I like you people. I like people that name inanimate objects.
naah not struck on Neville...it reminds me of that little aboriginal ornament in Ted Bullpitts front yard ;) It also makes me think of Darryl..Club Neville.
ReplyDeleteI think it needs to evolve, rather than be picked out. I think something will jump out at you.
Yes, I thought of Club Neville, too. Ted Bullpitt - haha!!
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree it will just jump out at me. I still thnk Dulcie is on the list ... :)
Maybe you could name it after yourself.
ReplyDeleteIt might be a tender feeling to know that you will find Sue as you left her and you can take care of her...sort of a visual representation of how you take care of you? Not that it has to meet any expectations, but anything you do to take care of that space might make you feel like you are being pampered.
Just a thought.
Jennifer - I like that idea ... but I'm still not sure. I guess I will add "Sue" to the mix and see what happens.
ReplyDelete"Ginger", huh? Have you named all the rooms in your houe, yet? :)
No, but my kids and I named the parts of our (5 mile long) street.
ReplyDeleteSo far we have:
Birch Bend (a long corner with birch trees)
Queezy Corner (where the kids just about lose their lunch)
Vacation Man's House (where this man has the cutest vacation cabin and still has cut firewood waiting to be stacked. He obviously isn't in any rush to get things done!)
Sugar Bear Acres (the owners have a carved wooden sign with this on it.)
Snug Harbor (another self named place)
Clear Cut Hill (where logging has been done and no trees replanted :(
Boo for Clear Cut Hill.
ReplyDeleteHooray for your naming it :)