January 18, 2020
Floppy copy, that pile of words wilted over itself ten times until folds become creases and creases become cold and snap into fragments of phonetic debris. Wind picks up and carries that debris up and you pick up the updraft breeze until you sneeze and some first paragraph splashes onto the screen, soaking through to software and deeper still into binary and then that little space between the ones and zeros. Suddenly, it’s all written up.
Whole-ass. Think about last time you whole-assed something. Maybe it was minuscule as an email, but you clicked send. And it meant something. The receiving end got a pocket vibration whiz ding tritone primal ear ping and picked up their rectangle to read your rubbish. Then they acted accordingly. You disturbed the universe. You whole-ass god.
Copy never feels more than half a cheek at most. That’s why there’s a clear natural division, so you can differentiate between what the werewolves are woofing at and what’s less. The fleshy full-moon Hendrix experience. Except instead of chopping mountains, you’re patting plastic dough on the silver palette of your keyboard. And others do the same. But their word debris gets watered down, mixed around and turned into some makeshift paint. They lay strokes, they design.
Done with design
Writers are designers. Idea architects. But designers are designers by name.
It’s a plain shame to see a work of art. Took an age to make and a brow-raise to eat. But you’re impressed by that eye meal. A design of any kind knows itself. It communicates how hard it was to hash out. Effort is immediately apparent.
Words take time to consume. A meat stick with retinas wriggles in excitement when it straw-sucks a petty poem. But real word-steak is thick. It listens to you, and you can’t possibly fit it in your mouth at once. Poems are hard, they stay—everything else is diethyl ether. Either here for good or gone.
Put your ear up close
Words are pictures. Everyone’s got their own mental museum. Picture a pink porous soft-puzzle brain. You might think it’s bubble gum mac and cheese through and through, but you’re wrong. Take an anatomy class. Brains contain little folders. Literal folders. They do. And those have pictures of every single thing you think you know.
Your own ear. Two, right? A mirror’s a mirage. You’ve never seen your ear. Put your ear up close to this. What does it see?
What we can make you do
When no one sees what you’ve said to them, there’s always someone syphoning the sound. In this case, it’s you.
Recipes
It’s not required to follow the recipe.
This is the first musing after the first of ███’s Newsletter has been sent out. I have many prompts that sound like they’d actually be of some use, but can’t remember what wise-ass things I’d planned to say when I came up with the draft titles. They won’t be written til I’m in the mind to whole-ass them.
Promise more whole-ass wise-ass words.
███
January 7, 2020
Wanted to call this one Amateur after the afterthought ending of the previous post. Decided Interrobang was more interesting.
Interrosting. When you interrogate a swarm of bees? When they interrogate each other? Perhaps the intercourse of their stings. Needle tips colliding, ejecting torsos, mutual minuscule fury, pinpoint midair mortality, yellow-black pajama joust, pointy bug hug.
A slight interest in all things and lack of specialty make an especially decent writer. Someone who will do to do, and will notice in between. Someone told to be crisp who’s cryptic instead. They laugh at concept.
The bee scene was a mind spree but lean into it. When wasp tips whip together, it’s Newtonian physics. Hubris and humility, hydrogen fusion. Hell if I know what’s happening here, but the devil knows it’s fun.
Time for Turkish tea and bedtime renegade. Night‽
January 5, 2020
It’s the start of a new decade and this is apt.
I’ve been meaning to write on self-discipline and will later, hence the hyperlink. Been littering these blue tickets around the site. They’re essays-to-be. You’ll click some and find another hour’s thoughts or an unkept promise. Literary lottery.
This one’s about self improvement. Getting better. Going nowhere certain until the ultimate certainty. Certainly insane, you might ascertain.
Two Rooms
To feel free in some sense, I need to constantly check my two rooms. My physical room and mental room. Two sequestered spaces I should have complete control over, else flicker out. The rooms are connected inextricably. Only when some segment of my mind and living quarters are clean can I move on with whatever it is that must be moved onto.
To exercise control over these realms, I end up deleting a lot. Keeping only: what’s small and linked to a specific memory (e.g. an art exhibit entrance ticket), what I’ll need to reference in the immediate future (info about upcoming taxes), what’s the best designed version (a Muji mug), what can be left behind without care (an up-cycled ice cream pint plant vase).
List of Fate
Things by Cultured Code is the best task managing software the world will ever know. It’s where I store my immortal ordinal mandate, my List of Fate. Anything on the list must and will get done. It’s never empty and never full. It’s ribboned onto the propellor affixed to my coccyx, fluttering aft.
I want to share a part of it with you. It’s raw, titled Health: Ideals and hypotheses for self-growth, divided into two sections, and alphabetized.
More
Cardio (for heart health)
Fasting (intermittent, for muscle toning)
Flossing (for dental hygiene)
Reading (for inspiration and introspection)
Sleep (for more daily energy)
Writing (to balance consumption)
Less
Caffeine (for more natural energy)
Masturbation (for genuine fulfillment)
Picking (for healthier skin)
Pornography (for greater sensitivity)
Social Media (for analog joy)
Sugar (for more acute taste)
The list is simple, personal, unimposing, measurably achievable. And I’m not sharing it to influence you in any way. It’s a sincere sequence I thought I’d test out and observe the results of after various readings and conversations.
I’ve stuck to all of them, more or less, shaping this current version of me. They’re basic on purpose, because goals that are broader are easier to hit and there’s little sense in creating a nuanced goal you’ll feel poorly about aborting or missing the mark. After molding to meet the broader goals it will be more intuitive to experiment with nuance and results will hopefully be more apparent.
The more and less lists interweave. I like the idea of being open to new interests, so try to maintain a lean and agile bodily form. Talking about this makes me feel like an incredible tool. It’s as much for me as it is for you, this spreading out. Actually walking the line is quite vexing, and as much as I’d like to go on about my observations in self-improvement, I’d also like to keep your honest interest—sincere communication between me and you—not some half-mock, quarter-spite perusal. A follow-up post is in order should interest be shown, otherwise the cards stay face-down.
Low Light
I’m no model and have no regimen, having introduced small consistencies to my life that have proven well over time in an effort to more efficiently navigate all of this. There’s a tasseled lamp letting a low yellow light onto the table on which I type and it feels warm now but I can only imagine reading this later more clinically and wishing I weren’t the type of person to share such topical detail. Up to you to resonate or ricochet.
Small consistencies. This yellow light. Emit just a bit but enough.
April Littrell