It’s either day 6 or 7. I can’t remember. After a while, the days without routine and electricity blend together into a foggy-headed smoothie that tastes like the middle of Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir” sounds. We’re all walking around with grim heavy-metal faces, but all feel confused and awkward, like maybe we accidentally ate some Percocet dusted catnip.
Self Help
- Challenge yourself every day. Try climbing the stairs carrying two soccer balls while wearing your father’s shoes. Remember, failure IS an option.
- De-clutter! Start by throwing all your dishes in the garbage. After that I suggest toothbrushes and important paper work.
- Pee on the floor and stomp in it like a puddle. You’ll be shocked how much better you feel.
- Whether the glass is half empty or half full is irrelevant if you dump it out on the sofa. You’re welcome.
Thinking in terms of achievement and legitimacy, instead of creativity and growth, earns any “artist” a one-way ticket on the bitter bus to Hacktown. Lately, I’ve wanted to be booked on shows for approval and acceptance, rather than the opportunity to perform. I’ve taken it as a sign to perhaps accept stand-up’s persistent pleas to change its role in my life to “hobby.”
If I strain-out the ambition, I’ll be more able to enjoy the juice, right? A mind focused only on the quality of its product can create things without the nagging influence of their marketability. Continue…
Everyone needs to relax, right? We’re all going to die of cancer, heart disease, stroke, diabetes, polio, yellow fever, you name it, and stress will cause it. (A few others I thought of are arthritis, depression, constipation, pernicious anemia, and black death.) There are a lot of methods out there to help you relax. Here are the problems you can expect if you try them.
Method: Visualization
Problems: Sometimes when we close our eyes, all we see is scary stuff like famine, shoeless street children, and locked public restrooms. Continue…
We can’t offer Arlo (nearly 2) anything to eat if he already has food in his mouth. If he likes the new offer better than what he’s chewing, he simply opens up and lets everything ooze out. Sometimes it’s a whole cashew, but more frequently, it’s a semi-mysterious starchy wad of something cheesy. The wad tumbles down the front of his shirt like a sticky wall monkey slowly losing its hold. Sometimes the wad breaks into pieces, leaving a third of itself on the collar region, another third around the belly button, and the rest on the waistband of his pants. Continue…
