Saturday 10 September 2022

 Ten minutes.

Eyes are burning, you're so tired, but ten minutes and you can tick this off the list.

Drowning in To Do lists, habit trackers, daily tasks

tick tick tick 

This isn't anything, obviously but it must be done

"Write your memoir"

How to justify the self indulgence of writing about yourself

Too tired, you can feel your brain sluggish as it tries to turn words over inside it of it

but it's just rattling off to do lists

hair cut tomorrow, 1:30pm, curate August insta post, berate self for being the kind of person who curates a monthly instagram post, pack for work travel while being unbearably anxious about work travel, clean the cat litter, light off by midnight even if it's 11:58 that still counts, read for ten minutes, write for ten minutes

divide your time so thoroughly yet so inefficiently into unsustainable habits and tasks that nothing is ever done well. 

Think about the novel you want to write but never sit down to write it. Or at least, not for more than ten minutes.

Doodle things you wish you could draw well, but don't dedicate the time to practice and get better.

Read a lot but only two genres and mostly stuff that doesn't actually materially improve your mind.

Oh, and the New York Times mini crossword. Can't forget that.

11:45 - ten minutes of reading and light out by 11:58, doable. Goodnight.

Tuesday 16 August 2022

PANIC

 Everything's fine.

You're sitting, or walking, or more than likely, trying to fall asleep. You're okay. You have a bed, you're not hungry, your home is safe, your parents love you, your friends are good people. 

Everything's fine.

So why, pray tell, dear universe, is your throat closing up, is your vision blurring, does your chest feeling like its both being crushed inwards and torn outwards, are your thoughts spiraling, are your hands shaking, are you gasping gasping gasping?

Everything's fine.

A single thought floated, unbidden, across your consciousness and now it's like someone pressed pause, stopped time like in a superhero movie, but instead of everyone else being stuck and you moving, you're stuck and everyone else is moving. A single thought, of what? It doesn't even matter, you don't even remember, your thoughts are skipping over your thoughts are skipping over the same your thoughts are skipping over the same thing over and over and over. It feels like what you'd imagine a record scratch would sound like, if you could imagine anything right now. Don't worry, you can't.

Everything's fine.

It's a few seconds. It's not like, full blown anxiety. You know what that feels like too. Trying to count tiles on the floor or remembering everything you ate that day or counting how long you inhale and exhale. It's nothing serious, nothing worth talking to anyone about. It's just there now, more than it was before, which isn't really that hard anyway because it wasn't there at all before. These feelings are new, for you, but they're over so fast it's like you could even do anything about them if you tried, right? And there, it's fading. What made it fade? You don't even know what triggered it so how could you possibly understand how to get rid of it. But that doesn't matter anyway, because

everything's fine.

Five seconds. There, it's gone. See? Nothing to worry about. Chest crushing blind consuming mind-wiping panic for five seconds and we're back to normal operating procedures. It wasn't even that bad, really, was it? No one's noticed. Your heart rate would barely have registered a blip. Everything is fine. Now, what were we talking about?

Monday 20 June 2022

FEAR

FEAR

The tingle creeps along her spine. It's becoming so familiar that she barely notices it anymore. The night is dark around her and despite her best efforts to pick well-lit streets, she can't help it that the only apartment she can afford is at the end of two small alleys, shooting off what could only generously be described as an actual street. It's the same every night, as she turns that corner from the comparatively blinding light of Marigold Street - an actual street - into Wickerton. Here's where she starts counting her steps. Only 280 (give or take) steps to go.

It's a Sunday night, so Wickerton is quieter than the last two nights. Coming from a packed bar, you'd think any street would be quieter, but Wickerton on a Friday or Saturday buzzes with a persistent, grating undercurrent of activity. But Holly prefers Friday and Saturday nights. Even when she's coming home at 5am, when no one awake has any good reason to be so, their motivations are clear, and Holly can walk confidently enough past them that no one questions her.

254 steps to go, and the tingle returns. That's ... unusual. Usually the flicker of anticipation only follows her those first few steps into Wickerton. Holly risks a glace over her shoulder, usually something she'd avoid as a sign of weakness or insecurity, covering it by crossing the street as she does so. She calls this move the Check for Traffic. 

The street is empty. 229 to go.

Tonight was a long night, especially for a Sunday. The early evening business crowd didn't retire by 10 as they usually did, which meant that when the chaotic Sunday night crowd - the people who really don't have a care in the world - showed up, the bar was packed. There was something electric in the air; Holly could feel it, even behind the bar, stone cold sober. A feeling of something frenzied and unrestrained. She shivers, thinking about it. 193.

She's very rarely been tempted to drink on the job. Ten years of serving drunks tends to send people one of two ways, and she's definitely ended up on the sober side of the line. But that feeling in the air tonight ... she can still remember the bright red colour of the cosmo as she poured it into a glass, and the way her arm almost pulled it back from the blonde with the twinkle in her eye that Holly was meant to be serving. How she had to forced her hand to set it down on the bar. She shakes her head as she tries to clear it, the chaotic energy from the bar almost seeming to swirl around her again.

There's 147 steps to go when she hears it, and once she does she realises it's been there from the moment she stepped into Wickerton. Maybe from the moment she left the bar. Maybe from earlier?

A second set of footsteps echoes softly between the buildings on either side of the road. 

She doesn't yet risk a look, but one set of footsteps is always infinitely more intimidating than a group. A group of men will talk shit and make her feel uncomfortable, but one man on his own ... She starts walking a bit faster.

124, and she's almost at the turn for the first alley. The shiver that was tracing her spine before spreads out, and her shoulder shudder as it passes through them. She thinks she can hear a laugh in response, but the sound is so soft she can't have heard it, not unless the person was right behind her. The footsteps seem louder but they're not that loud. Yet.

The last word flicks unbidden through Holly's mind. It doesn't feel like her own thought. It feels like someone dropped it in her mind. Bright red cosmo. Unlit streets. A fingernail of fear down her back. Yet. Yet. Yet. 

97 and she rounds the corner. She tries not to but she can't help it. She looks around. No street-wise maneuver, just a slightly manic glance around before she turns down the first alley. There's nothing, of course, of course, but she definitely hears a laugh this time. She knows, because she feels it whisper along her neck and up into her ear. 

What would normally take her 25 steps (give or take), she discovers takes much less when she's running. She's lost count as she barrels around the corner and sees her building in front of her. The keys jingle loudly, but every clang sounds like- 

Sounds like the time her brother broke his legs in third grade. Bones cracking. This thought doesn't feel like hers either. Yet.

The keys are in her hand the air is cold - when did it get cold? - behind her as she finally slips it into the first lock and stumbles into the lobby of her building, careening towards the stairwell. She hears the front door crash closed behind her but she doesn't turn around to look as she thinks that maybe it took half a second longer than it usually does. 

There's 43 stairs in the stairwell to her floor. She's still lost her count as she takes them two at a time. The echoing sound of the second set of footsteps resonates around her, and Holly doesn't know whether it's coming from in front of her, behind her, or from her. Her eyes catch on her hand as she grabs the railing, hauling herself up. Her nails, bright cosmo red. She doesn't remember that she painted them black this morning. 

Reaching her floor, keys have always sounded like breaking bones, and her footsteps, their footsteps, have always echoed each other and her nails have only ever been red. The key slides into the lock, and the door swings open, and Holly can't help the habitual glance up at the mirror hanging on the wall opposite her door. Bright, twinkling eyes. A third and final laugh. The door closing a half second too late. The sound that keys make. Red, and then black.


Wednesday 8 June 2022

CRUSHING

I'm throwing around ideas in my head about writing Something More Substantial. Here's practice for the two characters texting to get to know each other. The conceit is that Ruby (l/case) receives a text out of the blue, totally wrong number, but they start texting and crushing. 

-

about: CRUSHING 

Well, if you're not going to tell me your name, what should I call you?

im sorry but ive lived in this city long enough to know there are MURDERERS and also cyber people who could steal my whole identity with just my phone number and my name. you can call me whatever you like.

I think a cyber person would be able to find your name - and a lot more - just from your phone number. The fact that I'm asking is surely evidence that I'm not a cyber person trying to steal your identity. I can offer no defence for the murderer part, however.

not true because if the cyber person looked it up, theyd find my grandmothers name, not mine.

Why would they find your grandmother's name?

because this phone number is hers

was hers

i inherited it

Oh, I'm so sorry about your grandmother.

its okay, it was a while ago but there you go, built in protection from cyber people

Not to be insensitive, but how does one inherit a phone number?

someone dies and you dont tell the phone company and keep using their sim card in your own phone. its very simple really

That ... makes a strange amount of sense, Six.

six???

For lack of any other moniker, I've decided to call you Six. It feels right; my mis-recorded number that led us here.

ill allow it even though i cant believe im texting someone who uses semi colons in said texts

(Ruby was smiling and blushing at her screen, hoping no one around her noticed the internationally accepted flashing indicator of I Have A Huge Crush On The Person Texting Me Right Now!)

what shall i call you

Oh no, I did the heavy lifting coming up with a name for you. You have to return the favour.

ugh fine ill work on it and let you know

you cant force inspiration with these things

how do you feel about murderer

I mean, not great, to be perfectly honest with you.

okay :( ill keep at it i guess

-

Monday 6 June 2022

HEARTBREAK

Writing is easy. I could sit down to write something and come up with something passable in an hour or so, something that helps me process a feeling or express a frustration or just feel productive and creative for a moment, with relative ease. Sitting down to write is hard. 

No one looks at this anymore, which is good, because I don't want them to, but there's also something so compelling about a Public Record. About being able to go back and see what I've written, and not in a Word document or scribbled in a journal - though the journal has its own feeling of satisfaction; it's just tempered by the crippling guilt I feel at the inconsistency of it. Typing is easy. No ruling lines and drawing artistic doodles copied directly from Pinterest into my bullet journal. No carefully curated handwriting. Just Times New Roman (Calibri can eat my ass) and the comforting click of the keys, the tactile feedback of something existing that didn't before. 

So here's what I'm going to try. I'm going to try writing prompts. Today's is What does the city sound like at night? 

-

She's curled up in her bed, which it's far too hot to be doing, at this time of year, but there's no other position that dulls the sharp ache in her stomach. The pressure of her knees pushing into herself is the only thing that's holding her together, keeping all of the inside things from becoming outside things. Keeping the silent, shaking sobs from wracking her whole body in loud, tearing agony. 

What little noise she makes is covered by the noise carried in through her open window on the breeze, the night punctuated by the thudding base of the club a few blocks away. The sound is loud enough that she could dance to it if she wanted to - has danced to it, on many nights with similar warm breezes and open windows, but without the thudding pain echoing the music and without the complete, suffocating loneliness. 

Eventually, the silent sobbing subsides, her body giving out on even that small exertion of energy. She has nothing left. All she can do is curl tighter around herself, trying to recreate the feeling of her wrapped around her body. All that's missing is the brush of her hair, the scent of sandalwood and vanilla, the whispered giggles and gentle caresses and her hands and her lips and

All of it. All that's missing is all of it.  

about: HEARTBREAK

-

Here's the problem I always have with writing: once I start, I don't want to stop. I ought to stop but the fact is, I just finished Red, White and Royal Blue (again) and I want to write about love and I want to write about anything with a quarter of the skill of Casey McQuinston but I can never think of anything to write, I just start writing and sometimes it makes something and her book is perfect and include "History, huh?" juxtaposed with "in the halls of memory, some things demand context." Anyway, now I have finished fangirling (I should read that book again), but the thing I love about books like that is they're a reminder that you don't need huge dramatic plot swings and twists and turns. You can have a book about two boys falling in love and also one is a royal and one is the son of the President of the United States and that provides enough tension to act as a compelling backdrop to exploring their romance. No one else cares about this, but this is something I need to write, to understand, to know that I can write something and it's allowed to be tropey and silly and predictable but it will still be mine. 

Okay, enough of that. Let's see what tomorrow brings.

And she never wrote again

Nah, just joshing with you. I've started journalling instead in the hopes that it will get all my internal monologue-y stuff out, so then I can write something not just stream of consciousness here. But all that happened is I stopped writing here entirely.

There's something funny about one of your hobbies becoming your job. Now, I don't know if it's entirely accurate to call writing a hobby for me, because it implies some structure and purpose that I'd love to have, but uh, don't. I want to write something publishable one day, even if just vanity published to have my own name on my bookshelf

Started 16 April 2020. Published 5 June 2022. Old habits.

Thursday 26 March 2020

I don't feel like writing today

I don't have anything to say and I'm tired from work and don't want to look at a computer screen anymore and I have no creative juices and I don't want to just keep blogging about myself and my introspective thoughts because it can only last so long and I feel like I can only be so self-indulgent before it gets tiresome.

So I am instead going to go and continue reading my book and maybe watch an episode of a TV show and then go to bed. At least I have fulfilled this obligation for another day. Don't worry, I have a four day weekend coming up and I'm sure by the end of it I will be sufficiently bored of any other distractions that I'll feel like writing creatively again. Probably at about 9:30pm the night before I start work again but hey, I'll take what I can get.

Wednesday 25 March 2020

Don't Call It A Comeback

Except actually don't. I had a very long day at work today, finishing around 8pm :) :) :) :) So now I'm doing this in OG Adrienne Style, by which I mean at 10:30 when I should be reading or sleeping and instead I'm sitting down to start thinking about writing something now.

Today was a hard day. Our home internet wasn't working, and because I live in a Maltese house of character, it basically means that the bottom floor is under 1,000,000,000,000,000 kgs of stone and we don't get phone reception there, which meant I spent the day hotspotting from my phone but the only place my phone gets reception is in my room. So basically I spent the day working from my bed which may, in theory, sound delightful and like I am Living The Dream, in reality, it stinks. Maybe it would be good if I at least had the choice to leave but I didn't and it was Not Fun.

Isolation is a weird place. I found myself wanting to go for a run? It hasn't yet materialised into actually running yet but I've been wearing a sports bra for three days in anticipation that it might, and not wanting the excuse of needing to get changed to get in the way. I did voluntarily do some exercise: jumping jacks, sit-ups, push-ups, squats, etc. (There is not etc. That was all there was.) And normally I'm reluctant to go to bed in the abstract, there's-other-things-I-want-to-do-with-my-time-like-watch-another-episode-of-The-Resident way. Now I'm reluctant to go to bed because I have already spent all day in it so how do you transition to night-bed from day-bed.

My muscles, especially my legs, feel cramped and achy from the doing nothing - and I'm not the most active girl on a regular day. My sprint to the bus I'm always running late for is about it. But I feel increasingly like a tightly coiled spring with too much energy and nowhere to put it. I never thought the introvert in me would struggle so much to be housebound.

So this is Isolation Diary Day Something. I'm trying not to think about the uncertain endlessness of this looming in front of me. At this rate, I'll be running marathons - in my mind.

Tuesday 24 March 2020

A Streak of Two is Still a Streak

I'm working on writing other things - stories, in theory, I suppose, or something. I asked for prompts to help my creative juices flow, which was great up until the point that I realised it created both an audience and an expectation, however indifferent either of those may be. At this realisation, of course my brain has now rebelled against doing absolutely anything related to anything that's been suggested to me, but I'm trying, I promise.

One of my brothers asked me to write song lyrics. Here goes.

...
Oh wait, that's not in my talent set. I can only think of overly earnest and cheesy things or obnoxious coronavirus-related ditties, and neither of them well-formed.

Okay, I'm going to cop out and go on a song lyric generator, where I will now create a song line by line with the inspiration word 'home'. Spoiler warning: It's a shit show.


A Song For Noah To Practice Guitar

Hospice, let's talk about hospice
I've got new multiple sclerosis
I need a rheumatoid mortgage
Like the neurosis over meiosis

Urogenital, urogenital girl
And when you're gone I feel creaky
You must think I'm a grumpiness
And every subconsciousness is squeaky

[chorus]
You don't wanna be wheezy like me
Got more carefree
I know you think that I'm turnkey
Got more carefree
An e for you and one for me
Got more carefree
You and me

Rheumatic, rheumatic boy
Then you came with all your ailing
You don't want to go crumbling with me
And I'm dancing because you're not failing

[chorus]

Save me from the unselfconscious neuralgia
Neuralgia neuralgia
Save me from the unselfconscious neuralgia
Internal ain't nothing when I'm tottering with ya
Tottering with ya

Thank you https://www.song-lyrics-generator.org.uk/ ????

Monday 23 March 2020

Let Us Embark (Perhaps)

Every return becomes a little more sheepish. Especially this one, six (6) years later. But where else to write nonsense on the internet? I could create a new blog of oddly assorted nonsense, but that seems to defeat the purpose. What makes this nonsense any different from the old nonsense? Years and wisdom? Not likely.

Here, newcomers to my life can track a few years of it in crippling detail: Harry Potter fanfiction (only one ... thus far), rants, doomed attempts at regular or frequent blogging, embarrassing confessions, etc. Longer-term investors in the life of Adrienne can return to all these posts you may have seen before, and delight in how far I haven't come.

I want to write more. I want to connect with a version of myself I seem only able to reach when I'm writing. Writing forces zero distractions. I can't write (well) while I watch TV or look at my phone. It is only through writing I can examine, explicitly or otherwise, parts of myself that fade otherwise. And now we're all basically in isolation and my computer is permanently set up glamorously on my coffee table while I learn how to work from home so there's really no excuse, is there? I will find one, don't get me wrong. But let's see how long it lasts until I do.

Reading back through these blogs always brings me a strange confluence of feelings. (Am I using that word correctly? Google didn't help. I think so. I'm sure my dad will tell me otherwise if he ever reads this.) I think I'm funny enough, and as you can see from the angsty poem below, it's pretty difficult for me to think good things about myself in general. I like reading my own work. But it also terrifies me, because a lot of it feels like it was written by someone else. Someone, and you might be sensing a theme here, better. I just reread a poem I wrote and I don't know anything about poetry so I can't exactly say it's a good poem but I can say that it captured a feeling that I know in a way I don't think I could capture now.

So I'm writing here again partly as an outlet. I spend so much time pouring things into my brain - phone, TV, podcasts, Youtube, there is literally enough content in different forms that you never ever need to spend a second alone with your own thoughts if you don't want to. I want to pour something out, instead. And I wish I was more multidimensional but I'm me and what pours out is words. Always too many and too fast but at least it's an out, not an in.

Also I did 20 minutes of yoga from a Youtube yoga instructor with almost my name today so I'm basically a lifestyle blogger at this point.

Oh and for the newbies? I never proofread. Well, I do, often, but I can never be bothered doing it before I hit publish, so think of the typos like a fun game where you get to figure out what I was trying to say, and the prize is comprehension.