Bring on the Long, Blank Summer

Today is the first day of my summer vacation. *sigh* I couldn't be happier about graduating from high school, but I'm a little irked at the thought of no longer being able to procrastinate writing because of schoolwork. I have a job, so I won't be doing nothing besides writing, but I'm not used to having no paper, test, or project in the back of my mind. It's scary to be only responsible for my book. 

A week ago, I was giddily "in the groove." I wrote a page a day and enjoyed it. Now I've slowed down a little, probably because I'm immobilized by my fear of losing that momentum, an obnoxious self-fulfilling prophecy. But I realized my mistake: I was focusing on product, rather than process. I'm sure everyone has had this problem, but it always takes me a while to realize I've fallen into this trap yet again. Fear works in the dark, and you only realize it's there after it's done you damage.

So I guess this isn't an incredibly original post, but I thought I'd get this blog started up again. (And your excuses are running out. School is over. For most, anyway.) Here is this post, tidily summed-up, straight from my bulletin board: "You must not intend to create something worthwhile. You must intend to play with blank space."

Vacation

Vacations are invariably disappointing when you don't actually take them. This is what I've been doing all week. My April vacation--or do you call it spring break?--has consisted mostly of writing essays for scholarships and practicing for the AP calculus test. 

It wouldn't be so bad if I didn't make such a martyr of myself, sighing heroically whenever my mom told me to take a break, answering sullenly, "I have no time." But then again, I have no time! I think I'm clearly on the path to being the nutty old lady who throws things at trick-or-treaters because I just want the world to leave me alone. I want to have time to read my pile of unforgivably good books and to write my own. 

I can get very upset when I am afraid about my writing, and watching unfunny America's Funniest Home Videos just makes me feel degraded. Half of them are too violent to laugh at and make me feel like an audience member at a very boring Coliseum. 

You might be able to tell I'm still uneasy about writing at the moment. But I did discover a pattern last night: fear>frustration>crying>exhaustion>surrender. And surrender is where writing can begin, because you're simply desperate to get something on the page before you fall asleep that night. So, maybe I'll do that again today. Or maybe I can somehow begin with surrender.

Clusterfsck

It came to me yesterday evening when I got out of the shower.

Is there anything more rugged and manly than a face full of hair? I consulted my handy-dandy manly handbook but found nothing. There's nothing like strutting your way into the classroom on the first day of high school with a full goatee. Nothing compares to the look on your friends' faces when they see you at Rite-Aid purchasing a can of Gillette when you're twelve (except maybe a box of Trojans, but that's another story entirely).

That's when I was struck with a quandary; is it manlier to have a beard or to shave it? On one hand, you're letting the natural rugged and savageness of the beard speak for itself, but on the other hand, you're putting a razer-sharp blade against your face. And you'll bleed. In today's society where the line between masculine and feminine is greatly distorted and blurred to the point where the concept of "man" and "woman" have become fused into a frankenstein of sexuality, it's sometimes hard to figure out what's going to make you look manlier and what's going to make you look like you care about things. Luckily, I don't have this problem.

This brings me to my next completely off-the-cuff topic of "Writer's Block". What the hell is it that causes somebody to have an idea that completely aborts itself like so many teenage girls with coat-hangers in the back of an alley? Pardon the example, but what exactly causes my mind to blank so easily? I blame the years of abuse my brain has suffered due to video games and Internet pornography. So often I'll have an idea that I can sew into an amazing little piece that I can talk about for ages, but every so often something comes along and decides to halt my progress. In fact, I've been writing this entry for about two hours now.

Spring Break comes to a close, and Easter Sunday is soon among us. Let us go and color eggs in hopes that a giant over-sized bunny leaves us candy rather than try to fornicate with our electrical sockets while we sleep.