Normal 2

     Sitting down. I just did some things and now I'm continuing to do things by doing this. [stop] I finally placed a rod in my closet [stop]. My friend lent me a drill because I couldn't find the drill that's usually sitting in a bag with some other tools. It was basically a hack job but as long as the rod can hold the clothes that won't fit in my dresser, that's fine. I previously used a simple tension rod to try and hang some clothes, but after some time the tension rod collapsed under the weight of the clothes. [stop] I tried to hang some heavier stuff on it, including a few jackets, and then it all fell. I just left everything on the floor of the closet until today. I'll have to wash all the clothes that were marinating on the floor.

    The closet came with a wooden rod installed in it. It was painted white and connected to the wall by two "rod holders" I guess. They sort of look like cups. They're concave. I think whoever installed the rod system just used screws to hold the rod holders in place, which is apparently not sufficient when it comes to keeping something fastened to drywall. I can't remember what you need to keep the screws firmly in place, but I think they're plastic and meant to hold the screws. [stop] Anyway, due to the deterioration of the drywall itself or due to the lack of a firm home for the screws, the whole system collapsed out of the wall on the left side. This is what led me to employ the tension rod, and now the more secure rod system using two metal rod holders, into which the metal rod slips and is held. The rod itself is actually comprised of two rods, one thinner than the other, that slide in and out so as to make the whole thing adjustable to lengths between 30 and 42 inches, or something in that range.

    Instead of placing the screws directly into the drywall, an act which would be a repetition of the previous builder's mistake and flawed design, I [stop] decided to screw the rod holders into the bottom pieces of a little shelf that sits on top of the small closet space. The bottom pieces are wooden and also white, and I think they support and level out the shelf itself, which is another flat plank of wood. [stop] I figured by drilling into the wood the whole system would be safer. At first, I tried to drill the screws right into the wood, but this didn't work and the drill started clicking and cracking. So I used another bit to make a hole in the wood first and then drilled the screws into these holes. I forget to mention that before I did any of this I used a tape measure to ensure the relative levelness or flushness of either rod holder with the other. I placed them generally where I thought they should be, then I used a pencil to mark the general space where I thought they should generally be placed. After making the holes, I drilled the screws into their homes. Some of them were a bit shallow, but I didn't feel like removing them and going back through the whole process of making deeper holes. Maybe I'll go back and fix this later, but maybe not since I already hung some clothes on the rod and [stop] it seems secure enough. Here's hoping.

    Now I just need to clean the clothes and see how many I can hang up with the space and hangers at my disposal. I might have to purchase more. I also noticed that I have to angle the hangers sort of awkwardly to have them slip onto the rod. That doesn't bother me all that much, so I think it's fine. I did google some different types of hangers that might help to avoid this whole awkward maneuvering process, but I'll look into this more later. All I could find were smaller "hangers" that you can connect to the already hanging clothes, clothes hanging from an actual hanger, and vertically hang more clothes from the smaller sub-hangers. This seems useful for saving space, so maybe I'll invest in some of these and see how they do. [stop]

    I keep getting those guilt trip notifications from Duolingo. I like the app just fine, and I think it's a good introduction to language learning. I'll try to pick up the Cyrillic alphabet along with my efforts to improve my Spanish, I think. I got through a few of the unfamiliar letters in the past week or so. [stop]

    Sometimes I think about throwing my phone into a large body of water because it distracts me so much on a daily basis. On the other hand, it's useful for obvious reasons. I'm starting to receive emails related to academic/professional duties or whatever and I find it hard to reply to them. Usually I just forget about them by some method of procrastination or executive dysfunction, although I'm not sure if I can rightly call it that.  It feels like that, anyway, which is why it's important to sit down and do something like this so I can be deliberate or focused or whatever, which can sometimes lead to being more deliberate or focused when doing other things that require more of that behavior. [stop] There's a trash bag sitting on the floor to my right, so I'll take that out soon. I wonder what's in it because it doesn't seem very full. Maybe it's not trash. I'll look through the little cinched hole in the top of the bag before I officially decide to take it out. [stop]

    Took out some recycling earlier. I was feeling productive and I guess I try to use that energy when I have it. "Deliberate and focused" energy. They say that recycling doesn't actually do as much good as we would like, but it's better than straight-up landfill shit at the end of the day, I should think. [stop] Are there certain phrases that automatically evoke a feeling of inferiority or lack of knowledge? The difference between saying "I should think" and "I do think"– two phrases that really have the same linguistic function. [stop] When I think about recycling I always think about a conveyor belt of recyclable garbage getting picked through by a bunch of waste management employees wearing hard hats. I wonder if this is the case or if they have some automatic technology that sorts this stuff now. I saw a movie in which the main characters go to a recycling plant and somebody working there talks about an explosion and a fire that took place on account of a misplaced aerosol can or something. Seems dangerous and I can't remember the film that I saw all of this in. It stuck with me though. [stop]

    I wrote some stuff in pen in a moleskin notebook yesterday. I was waiting for some friends to meet me. [stop] I don't need a natural stopping point for this. A story ends whenever it ends, doesn't it? If you're still curious about something in the story, then that's the story as well. The story can live with you that way. As long as it's "deliberate and focused," which is just a way of saying that the creator felt like doing something and they did.

    

Normal

     It smells like cat shit in the office room. Might sound weird to put it that way, but I can't say "my office" because it's not mine alone and it's also a room in a rented house. And maybe an office isn't a thing I want to have, but a place I want to be in. For practical reasons. Like I don't have a job that requires an office. I don't commute to an office for work, and if I ever have to do that I'll kill myself in a body of water or something. Everything I do in the office room is made up.

    I saw a quote from somebody that said "art is sex for the mind" or "art is the sex of the mind." Something like that. I think the quote was from a reputable thinker, or I at least recognized the name. But that's hilarious. Sex of the mind. I just don't understand the sentiment. I guess the quote-person was speaking in terms of pleasure or hedons or something. But really I don't know what it means. And I had to look at the comments because I always have to. I'm wasting my life and I'm the greatest at it. A lot of the comments were from bot accounts, which I usually just call "robots" because I guess it's funny, and they said some stuff about direct messaging an account and making a bunch of money with bitcoin or stocks or something. Some of the comments were praising the quote for being insightful and true. I wondered if the real people in the comments understood the quote in a way that I didn't, or if they just wanted to comment something so the other people who read the comments would know that they existed and recognize them, even if that recognition involved a feeling of scorn or ignominy.

    I don't want to do anything. I don't want to see anyone. I just want to stare at my laptop and think about what I would write if I wanted to write it. Just for now, maybe. Or maybe I'll feel this way for the rest of my life. That's also fine. If your reaction to this is that I should go to therapy, then you should go to therapy.

    Here's what I'll do. For transparency, every time I stop writing fluidly and continually, I'll put a little [stop] in the text. Just like that, in brackets. This will maybe encourage a more candid style. Just keep writing and it doesn't matter what it's all about. I started writing a story on the typewriter a couple weeks ago about two sexually deviant morgue workers. In the next piece of the story a man is going to go home and watch tv, and a woman is going to go home and also watch tv [stop]. That's neither here nor there, just something I wanted to mention. I drank a bunch of coffee today and read two books written by my friend. He's very talented and he also makes me laugh. It's interesting to read the writing of someone who you've spoken to regularly, like you can hear it in their voice and you might also pick up on tonal [stop] things that you wouldn't have picked up on otherwise. For example, some things can sound or be serious and hilarious at the same time. Or something might seem serious and just be hilarious. Vice versa. [stop]

    I wish I had an orange or some piece of citrus fruit right now. If I had a pineapple I probably wouldn't want to prepare and eat it. I'd want to eat it but I wouldn't want to prepare it. I will probably do nothing today and I will now accept the fact that I will do nothing. I think I'll turn one of these longer short stories into a novella or a novel. Start working on that this week. [stop] It can be about more things and include more details. Then maybe I can edit it and then see if somebody wants to read it. Or I can just read it and nobody else will. Then I can write something else. [stop]

    A few weeks ago I bought some plants from a plant nursery with my friend. I can't remember the names of the plants. I bought some mint and many people told me that it is impossible to kill mint, so I made it my goal to kill mint and it worked! The mint is now dead in its little plastic faux-pot thing. There's a pun in there. What is it? [stop] Faux Pas. I typed several variations of that phrase and then googled the exact spelling and definition. But I killed the mint. I didn't really consciously intend to kill it. Another plant, with purple and green leaves, I also killed. It was a beautiful plant. I have a little succulent that a friend gave to me as a housewarming gift and another cactus outside in another faux-pot that probably won't die no matter how badly I neglect it. Somebody told me not to plant it in the ground. I've been thinking about growing some hanging tomatoes. [stop]

    I was thinking about James Wright. One of my friend's books started with an epigraph, if that's the right word, written by James Wright. Something about hell and poetry; I liked it. I also like James Wright. I think he died from cancer in his tongue, something like this. The death seemed very sad, but he spoke well with his last words. I imagine that many people don't get last words, either because they cannot speak or because they aren't consciously thinking about the finality of the thing. I imagine it would help to have the finality in mind when you're speaking for the final time. But I don't know. I remember my grandfather's final words being a guttural "I love you" to everyone in the room. Those are good last words too. My grandmother collapsed on his bed with her hands like she was praying and she cried, saying "I love you. You were the best husband." I listened to a Green Day song on my ipod nano after I saw my grandfather die because I thought that was the music people would listen to when they were sad or when somebody died. Or maybe it was just the music I listened to because I was sad that somebody had died, somebody I loved. I shouldn't degrade the past like that. I just wanted to listen to some music and I was so sad. I remember just as he died I turned to face my father, who was standing near the door or just out in the hallway, and I fell into him and cried into his shirt, and he looked like he was about to cry too although I didn't see him cry, or if he was crying I didn't see him cry very hard. It was sad for everyone and my grandmother lived for less than a year after that. She fell down one day on her kitchen floor. I was a child then and I'm still a child now, I reckon. I love going to my grandmother's old house, which is my uncle's house now. I love my uncle, too. It still smells the same as it did. The fig tree in the backyard still grows. My grandmother's cat is getting old and wiry. The city water still has the strong flavor of my childhood. I used to cry a few times about not getting a toy or something. Everyone probably thought that was fine because I was a little kid. I wish I could've stopped doing those things sooner and maybe I would've seen or understood more things.

    But I think James Wright had cancer on his tongue and he was a wonderful poet. [stop] But I drank a lot of coffee and all of this is so disorganized and nonsensical. Maybe there's something here, but I can't see it. [stop] It smells like cat shit in the office room because there's a litter box in there, which is fine with me. The fan is on and I'm going to drink more coffee and try to be more deliberate with all of this.