It involved a lot of sudden passing out.
I would be lying in bed, thinking soup would be so nice. i will go to the kitchen. i will prepare some soup . I would have it all planned out. I would stand up, go about ten feet, and wake up who-knows-how-much-later on the floor.
I had recently been watching a lot of X Files (what...you haven't?), so I kept going, "Am I LOSING TIME??? Was I just ABDUCTED?"
This went on for some time, until my good, good friends managed to save me and drag my butt to a hospital, where the doctors gave me some kind of Grogginator medicine. When I finally regained consciousness, my friends had some questions for me:
Why are you unable to feed yourself?
Why are you unable to keep yourself hydrated?
What is wrong with you?
These were all good questions, so C and I came up with a plan, wherein I stayed at his place all week while he went to work. This way, if I was abducted by aliens again (or passed out...WHATEV), someone would be around to slap me awake. Perfect.
As I settled in, this plan appealed to me more and more. It would be my first experience as a convalescent. I had seen Little Women enough to know this was a fine thing to be.
People bring you broth! They rub your feet! You develop a rich interior life! BLANKIES!
After a couple days, when I exhausted the entirety of Hulu, I decided this would be the perfect time to write. I had tea, I had water, I had a whole silent apartment to myself. An artist's dream! I was going to be JUST. LIKE. WINONA RYDER!
It ends up that this is not as easy as it looks. In the movie, Jo dons her purple velvet hat and pulls out her inky quill and writes down a book on seal skin or tree bark or what the fuck ever. Convalescent Victorian ladies literally had nothing else to do except write.
Who has that stamina? Why is it that when I stare at this glowy rectangular screen for 12 hours a day it completely addles my brain? Why is the internet always, always more interesting than the creation of art??? These are my questions for the ages.
Right now my answers are: it's possible to write with an internet connection. You're just going to make very, very bad art.
Like this.
Or this.
Or even this.
And then, even when you turn the internet off, and face the wide, silent abyss of an entire day where you have nothing to do but write...
It's a roller coaster of feelings.
One moment, I'm sitting alone, gazing out the window, my fingers flying across the keys as idea after idea flow into my head. Everything is glorious!
Five minutes later, I get up to eat a cookie and when I get back to my desk, the whole flow is lost. Someone has stolen my inspiration!
Suddenly I am sunk into deep, existential angst. Who am I? What am I doing on this earth? Do I know anything at all? Am I, or my pursuits, even remotely worthwhile?
What will become of our writing heroine? Will she shut up and write something? Or will she doodle sad elephants in the margins of her journal, in between free verse about her feelings?
STAY TUNED.
Woman, PLEASE. You are from hardy Irish and Italian stock, raised (uh, well, mostly) in New England! You are too TOUGH to be a Victorian convalescent!
ReplyDeletePlus, count yourself lucky that you, at least, had vaccinations against typhoid fever, scarlet fever, and diphtheria. Otherwise shit would have gotten way too real.
I am still glad that you are better and have not been abducted. I would have to hunt those aliens down to get you back, after all, and I am no Scully or Mulder.
Final note--I KNOW, RIGHT?! THE INTERNET LURES YOU IN, makes you think "Everything you want is here!" and then the minute you get back to reality/your Word program, disaster!
The writing life is a harsh one, with or without velvet hats.
i am LOVING the amount of illustration in this post! also, if you were bedridden i would def bring you tea and listen to your worldly advice (which you would acquire without having actually been out in the world).
ReplyDelete