Tired and hot and grumpy. Today I ate too much, exercised too little, and accomplished nothing. I spilled everything everywhere. I am cranky with a capital C!
My entire life has revolved around writing for the past 4-5 months and I have done everything I can do to avoid doing so! I found this fantastic quote via Gala Darling today, and I think it describes my entire day/year/life pretty well:
“Usually, writers will do anything to avoid writing. For instance, the previous sentence was written at one o’clock this afternoon. It is now a quarter to four. I have spent the past two hours and forty-five minutes sorting my neckties by width, looking up the word “paisley” in three dictionaries, attempting to find the town of that name on The New York Times Atlas of the World map of Scotland, sorting my reference books by width, trying to get the bookcase to stop wobbling by stuffing a matchbook cover under its corner, dialing the telephone number on the matchbook cover to see if I should take computer courses at night, looking at the computer ads in the newspaper and deciding to buy a computer because writing seems to be so difficult on my old Remington, reading an interesting article on sorghum farming in Uruguay that was in the newspaper next to the computer ads, cutting that and other interesting articles out of the newspaper, sorting—by width—all the interesting articles I’ve cut out of newspapers recently, fastening them neatly together with paper clips and making a very attractive paper clip necklace and bracelet set, which I will present to my girlfriend as soon as she comes home from the three-hour low-impact aerobic workout that I made her go to so I could have some time alone to write.” — P. J. O’Rourke
Ayup. When I was in high school, I wrote like crazy. Senior year especially – I wrote in my journal, in my blog, I wrote poems and lyrics and short stories. I was so into writing and somehow it just flowed back then. I suspect it had something to do with the fact that I had a gigantic crush on a writer at the time and wanted to impress him in our Creative Writing class. But hey ho, it worked and I wrote more and he broke up with me after 4 days but that gave me even more writing material! I wish I could draw from that pool of motivation right now.
Anywho, this is really a completely unproductive post (hey see a theme here??) but my big project for the summer can be summed up in one word: SPAIN. I am attempting to get all of my memories in one place, be it writings or notes or ticket stubs or photos. Brochures, menus, maps, phrases, receipts….everything needs to be organized. It is a mess and I am attempting a book (yes! a book! more on that later) so I would very much like things to be neat and organized or at least in a folder shoved in the same drawer.
I unfortunately did not keep a completely coherent journal in Spain so I’ve been trying to freewrite memories 10-15 minutes every day, we will see how that goes over the next few weeks. After that I’ll need to type them up and then re-work/write passages that make sense and connect everything with events and humor and notes I took in my research book over there. It will be fun and interesting and frankly a little bit depressing every time I remember something I briefly forgot. I still can’t get over this whole “once in a lifetime experience” thing and keep thinking that come fall I will be back in my room with the cold marble floors and I have a good Spanish breakfast, say hasta luego to Loli, and amble off to class with my study abroad besties, planning our next long weekend adventure. Le sigh. I will be inconsolable once the one-year mark comes around.
I am so for sure applying for the Fulbright. My topic is going to be bitchin’. Enough babbling for now though. Time for bed!
