The Tallest Tree in the Forest

Today is the Fourth of July and so we take a moment to review what has happened so far.

Not really, I am suddenly tired. That in itself would be good name for a book, "Suddenly Tired". It's too bad that it takes so much more energy to actually write a book than to just think up a name. I bet I I could think up a name for a book in a third of the time it takes to write a book. I just bet.

My point is that, a few moments ago, I was young and virile and ready to go on something (well, not virile), but now, well, all the gumption has departed the gumption holding container, and no longer within my personal control. A sad state. In other words, I just flopped, my energy has dropped to zero reading, my get up and go-- you know.

I don't know what it is but it happened so quickly that I am willing to bet that the chemical mediators controlling my vascular tone just slammed shut on the mind and muscles and opened up to those squishy organs concerned with processing the oatmeal, fruit, and nuts that I had for breakfast 20 minutes ago. Man, that happened quickly.

At the same time, my eyes began watering, my nose running, my muscles became heavy and flaccid and my brain stopped dead in whatever tracks it's capable of making. In short, I don't feel like being terribly creative right now. In fact, I feel like taking a nap, if only I could find the energy to walk to my recliner.

That might be a fun thing to do. I'm sure I'd feel better in just a little while. If I could pull that off.

And then, Oh, the wonderful things I would think and write and live and dance and, oh shit. If only I could make it to that chair. But it's an impossible distance away, probably twenty feet from here and the smell of the coffee cup now beside me is so nice, I'd miss it terribly. Well then, take the coffee with you, you say. Ah, you see, if only I could. This is where your plan falters. As soon as you add something like that to the picture, I just lose all hope. I'd be better off just laying my head down on some towels here and risking death by a crank in the neck, than trying balance a cup and walk to the chair. I'm not the cat in the hat, you know.

I'll just try to write my way through this awful, awful, dilemma. It won't be easy, I understand. Still, it's what Churchill or someone like him, maybe Henry Longfellow, or Soupy Sales, I don't know. The great writers, Jack Kerouac. Is that how you spell that name?

If I were in Oregon now and having eaten french fries for breakfast, like my son Ben, well let's just say that it's a good thing I'm not there. The whining alone would have earned me the disapprobation of the locals and I would have been a great burden and embarrassment to my kin. No, it's much better that I suffer through this post-prandial crisis here in the cozy isolation of my office or study, nestled comfortably in the family manse. I think those are real words. I'll let the spell-checker worry about that. Dammit Jim, I'm a writer, not a, a, an, -- well someone who spends all their bloody time picking words apart to see if their real or not. There, I said it and I'm proud. I'm glad it's out.

I feel a little better, not so, on-the-edge-of-abyss-y. I told you, I don't care. Besides, once the world reads this, I'm sure that most of these words will enter the common idiom post-haste. Probably the editors of the Oxford English thingy will throw their hands up in self-deprecation and cry  "quel dommage". Yes, it's nice to have so many languages at my fingertips, but it's also a great burden. I think mostly due to the jealousy of others.

Another wave of paralyzing ennui has washed over me and even my nearly superhuman intellect and strength wavers. Do you remember the scene in Superman when he opens the lead box filled, yes, it was lead so he couldn't see through it, and finds a chunk of Kryptonite inside and he starts feeling all woozy and weak? Well, this is much worse than that. Believe me. Superman would not have made it this far. I think they wrapped him in chains and threw him into the ocean. However it went, it was bad and I sure don't want to deal with that, as well the loegy feeling.

I think I'd better just go lay down for a bit until the effects of the Kryptonite subside. Maybe some broth but nothing solid for now.

I'll, ugh, see, you, ugh, umm, in a bit. gasp

More later,