--THINGS WOULD BE A LOT EASIER IF YOU'D JUST PUT DOWN THAT KNIFE

…What do you do when nothing comes together? When there’s not enough sticky substance to keep the sides and center together? I haven’t figured that out. A lot of times I just drip or leak or lose parts of myself because I can’t figure out the holding-it-together jig that everyone else is so good at.

…I started the new novel. I actually started it several times. I’m not so sure which tense to use or where to launch the tension, but I suppose that doesn’t matter as much as just getting the boat in the water and sinking a couple of oars.
I mean, what do you think?

…I read a friend’s blog where they talked about going to Borders and how excited they were by the bargains.
I went to Borders and started trembling.
I wanted to puke.
It was looking inside a mausoleum, opening up smelly caskets filled with decrepit corpses that were half-wasted away.
How sad.
I was never a big Borders fan, but still, how depressing is it to see a once proud lady now emaciated and humiliated?
I wanted to weep.
Instead I left after about 50 seconds of being there.
I am not so strong.

…This morning my coffee is steaming. It burns by lips. It stings my hands when I hold the paper cup even though the container has a sleeve. It’s very hot.
Sometimes it’s good to drink boiling hot coffee and to singe your nerve endings a little so that you know you are still alive and capable of feeling things. I think that is important.

…A thing I don’t get is why people are rude.
Or why people tailgate.
I know these two thoughts are random and not inter-related, but they are subjects that befuddle me.
(Befuddle is a fun word to say. Try it.)

…Have you ever read “Ordinary People?” I saw the film many, many years ago. Robert Redford directed it. Mary Tyler Moore was in it. Timothy Hutton, too. (he was a boyish 17 years old.) I don’t recall who played the father.
The movie won “Best Picture.”
Last year I was reading a writer’s magazine and it said “Ordinary People” (the novel) was the only book that had “tension on every page.”
I tracked down an old copy and read it.
Sure enough—there was tension on every page. I mean, every freaking page. It’s brilliant and heart-racing.
I started reading it again to inspired my own novel.

…What are you doing today? Is it foggy where you are like it is where I am?
What are your plans?
What are you wearing?