Fuck This...I'm Leaving

I try not to speak unless I have something to say. Lately, this has been more and more infrequent. As each day dies, I feel myself getting more sick at heart, more tired.
I've been realizing that the only time I feel satisfied these days is when I'm at work, because it's the only place I'm actually focusing my mind and body productively and getting things accomplished. Once the day is done and I slump through the door of my apartment, the string goes out of my back and I succumb to the unholy triumvirate of Gmail, Myspace, and OiNK. Business as usual.
While I'm at work, my mind can run circles around whatever it wishes; my body is going through the motions. Preparing mirepoix. Peeling and dicing beets. Pulling the stems off spinach. The motions are mechanical and meditative. And over the past few months, they have taught me something.
They have taught me that it really doesn't matter what you have to say. The real work and creation is done on the prep table, day in day out, and the only task is to get it done. Some days the brownies will look better than others. Some days the bechamel might taste a bit funny, but you make it anyway. Talking is secondary. When I'm facing the dishpit and watching the steam rise and the machine purr, I feel as if I'm watching myself go through the motions with almost no interference; I don't think at all. It's a pure, beautiful act. And people still look at me funny when I tell them no, I really enjoy doing dishes...
I realize that this blog is, by and large, very repetitive and very whiny. It is, by its nature, talk. And the sickness that has been rising in me lately grows from the unavoidable question: what the hell do I have to say, really? With all my good intentions, plans, and daily pseudo-revelations, I manage to stave off the reality that I get fuck-all done each day. Between work, feeding and bathing myself with semi-regularity, and eeking out the occasional blog, I go to sleep each day with all the Big Projects left untouched. You know the ones.
One of my favorite blogs, and from whose mind comes the title of my own, is that of Amanda Palmer. I always aspire, unconsciously or otherwise, to create in my own blog the kind of satisfaction and insight that she displays in hers. But here I am faced with the crucial difference: who the fuck am I? Amanda has things to talk about. She's got her hands in it. She is (despite her recent protestations to the contrary) living first, blogging second. And either way, her touring and miscellaneous adventures give her actual substance to report back on. What do I have to report? Same shit, different day.
I'm tired of listening to myself talk, even in the form of pixels on a screen. I'm sure some of you are sick of it too. I know Valentine is.
So in the way of resolutions, this is a small one. It's about time I started shutting the hell up and going through the motions already. My hands know what to do, and everything I have to say leading up to the starting point has already been said. Beaten into a stain on the pavement where, once, long ago, there may have lain a dead horse, if I might borrow a page from the venerable Mr. Gaiman.
This is the point where I feel the brief joy of making a new start, which is followed by a false sense of accomplishment and then immediate relapse into inactivity. Oh no. Don't let me get away with it. I'm out to earn myself something worth saying. I'm out to get dirty, and hopefully get things done. Thoughts of quality and perfection are just two pretty distractions on the way to a deathbed full of regret. Let's just go.




The American Analog Set - Fuck This...I'm Leaving