You people are in serious trouble. I keep notebooks, scraps of paper, and now ripped up quart sized booze bags lying around the house with notes and ideas and thoughts and inspirations to write about and from.
I found one yesterday that is three years old. I know this because there is a reference in there to The Allman Brothers Band upcoming 39th anniversary. That was in 2008.
I read my own thoughts with great relish and affection.
First of all I titled the notebook "Small Thoughts of a Restless Mind with Deadly Overtones." That is an absolutely fantastic title. I will use that somewhere. Its perfect.
One note says the perfect epitaph is "Happily Dead". Love it. That's back when I thought being dead was preferable to being a low wage earner and kissing the ass of the Mortgage Vampire. Which it is if you have no hope. In 2011 I have hope.
Got another that says "Love is for ugly people". My theory there was that beautiful people don't know what love is because they can have anybody they want. So their relationships are all about sex and narcissism.
Another entry - "When the phone rings..............Jonathan, Lisska". Was thinking about my hatred of phones and it was inspired by two bad news phone calls.
"I would like to live alone in a small sparsely furnished room and slowly drink myself into a stupor every night while writing poetry."
"If I don't have secrets, how can I know who I am?" Another one that I love.
There is a very bizarre dream summarized over two pages that involves me, Johnny Cash, the Jaworskis, an elevator that rises to the thirteenth floor and then "rolls over the top like a ball", my parents, Jack Lemmon and Room 1308. Wow. I am not kidding.
"So much sadder when the owner dies before the pet". Humans understand death (to a point); pets do not.
Try this one on for size:
"I do not know how to be happy in this world
I do not know how to "succeed" in this world
But I keep trying
I don't care about their rules
I have my own definitions
I just can't read them yet (don't know where I left them)."
Very tasty.
There are some horrible failed attempts at poetry. There is one called "My Friends Keep Picking Up The Tab." This references my constant and crushing poverty and how when I meet up with two of my old friends they always pay. The poem sucks but the idea still resonates with me. I can work with this.
I was in a much darker place back then. "I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now." Thank you Mr. Zimmerman, I had to steal that line; it seemed to fit.
What blew me away was reading these words, thoughts, ideas from the perspective of the 2011 version of The Joe. It was like reading someone else's writing.
There is a lot to work with there, and now the interpretations will come from a slightly or, at times, a vastly different place.
So you are in trouble because I am jazzed. When I'm jazzed, I spew. Even if I don't use any of this stuff (which is highly unlikely; I am narcissistic and love these notes), I am throbbing and humming and thrumming with inspiration and fresh, rehashed ideas.
I am a very dangerous man in this state. I hop around and bop around in a creative frenzy and forget to drink my milk and take my vitamins.
I can't focus on the picayune details of life and will sometimes leave the house wearing one cowboy boot and one slipper.
This frenzy amplifies my already unstable state. I am a creative person; I have no common sense. Typical conversation with Carol: Me - "Every time it rains I get soaking wet. I don't understand it." Carol - "Have you thought about wearing a jacket and a hat or maybe carrying an umbrella?" Fifteen second pause. Me - "No, actually I haven't tried that. Maybe I'll give it a shot." Carol - "Idiot."
Sometimes when I write every day I get stale. Every great once in a while I feel myself forcing it. Which I hate because I am spontaneous and speak best from the soul.
I am energized now. Feeling good about myself. The way I should about myself.
I like my bizarre mind and I like the way I write. Sounds cocky, but you have to have confidence to do something as risky as writing. I mean, give me a break, I gotta feel good about something.
Duck - strange word happenings are about to come your way.
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