Skipping Lightly, Oh Fuck Yeah

I'm sitting in the Newburyport Starbucks. Too many kids around for my tastes, but it will have to do.

I vowed to work on the novel today, but I had a morning meeting at the jiu-jitsu school and I'm going to karaoke tonight outside of Waltham. Because of a driving situation that doesn't bear repeating, I had to drive Jess to Newburyport for her four-year old niece's birthday party. And the funny thing was, as I was sitting on the couch in the basement, watching football.

I tend to associate watching weekend sports with intellectual laziness. I have no justification in doing so. I just do. It makes me feel greasy, in a way that a more complete collapse into do-nothing daydreams doesn't.

But oh yeah, I mentioned a funny thing. The funny thing was that I was starting to enjoy myself, sitting there, nursing a beer and watching the game. People let their hair down and forget the silent children in the room, and all sorts of otherwise taboo subjects are brought up. I kept track. Everything from reprisal killings to cocaine to -- I don't know -- the goddamned news. It's all news, this . . . . But I've known Jess enough so that her family are, well, dare I say it? Let's move on . . . .

So I left. Not to prevent a good time, but to insure continuity on the novel. It's too easy to take a few days off and start filling the time with learning to make paella. It's hard enough to get home and fry up and clean up and up up up when the pull of the earth is so damn low. The heaviness at the end of the day. And, right at that moment, I was to drain the syrup from my ears and write a novel that people will actually want to read, and that will mean something to people.

Mean something. Hmmm. Vague language. Have to be careful with that. But you know what I mean.

So I'm here among the crying babies, working for my 1000 words. That's my daily goal. One year, one novel, do or die.

So it goes. Me and the crying babies and the coffee, spitting away on a cold Saturday afternoon in Newburyport.