Focus.

A lesson in writing.

Have your chosen writing implement of choice. Some prefer a pencil, some a very certain kind of pen, others a laptop or keyboard. Typewriter. Clay tablets. The sky.

Stare at something. Walls are good for this because we are nearly constantly surrounded by them. Stare at a wall. If you're outdoors, simply rethink your definition of 'wall.' It shouldn't take long before you're feeling mildly claustrophobic in the great outdoors.

Take a sip of coffee. Take another, longer sip of coffee. Coffee is important for this; tea is an acceptable substitute depending on your culture and upbringing. It should be in a mug at least. Sometimes it can be whiskey. Don't serve whiskey hot.

Take a deep breath. Do not do so while you take a sip of coffee. This will end poorly.

Now don't think. You've done all your thinking before, when you're on the way to your job or caught in the middle of a long grocery line when you really just needed some eggs, when you're staring at a wall and you realize that there's someone who hasn't been in your life for a very long time and you deeply regret that. You've already thought about the fact that the person you miss isn't real, not anymore. Time passes and people change. You aren't the same, and they certainly aren't either.

Think about the uncomfortable sense you have that your days are so rote as to be interchangeable. Think about the fact that because you have thought this you have marked this day as unique. Think about the fact that thinking about thinking about the facts might just be another element of your rote days. Contemplate the definition of meta. Realize you miss the feel of a lover's skin under your fingertips. Realize that your fingertips are in contact with a writing implement.

Take a long sip of coffee. 

Realize that it's a beautiful day. It may be storming, or oven-hot, or grey-cold, or night. Realize that the state of time and weather is irrelevant. Realize that it has been a beautiful day for a very long time. Contemplate the definition of beauty. Do not contemplate the definition of day.

There is noise. Tune it out, listen closely to it, or replace it with whatever noises you in your godlike capabilities feel compelled to conjure. 

Think about all the people in your life. Think about people who aren't in your life. Create people in both categories. Make them want things. Make them do things. Make them take long sips of coffee. Take notes.

Chime.

Here we are. It's another day. The sun's out, or it isn't. The birds are singing, or they aren't. You're filled with a sense of existential dread that you're masking a little more than usual.

Or you aren't.

I love the idea of a New Year's party. We have people from all across the world and all walks of life cheering our little planet on as it makes another turn around the sun. I like that thought, all of us shouting encouragement at the Earth as it books it for the celestial finish line. I like even more that the race starts over again but we're still cheering until someone hits someone else or throws up in public.

Or maybe I don't. I'm not sure yet.

New Year's celebrations are beautiful in the darkest way; for a few minutes we completely embrace the passage of time, hoot and holler as the clock winds down, the numbers go up, and we get a little older. We celebrate our own mortality, raise drinks to our locked drift through the days, and make our own peace with the end of it all. New journeys start as old adventures finish.

You know what the greatest part is? We all watch a clock and count down the last seconds of the last minute of the final hour of the final day, pushing the time along into another year, a greater number, closer to greater and more final endings...and we start it with a kiss.

The first word most people speak every year is 'happy.' Tell me that isn't beautiful.

Drip.

Starting the day off with five moderately good shots of espresso and French jazz because Edith Piaf is one of the greatest things to happen to music and caffeine is one of the greatest things to happen to me.

After a brief voyage into strange and terrible places, I am back and radiating glory. The only real regret I have over the last couple days is that I didn't write a fucking word, and shame on me for that. There's poetry even in a massive depressive episode, dammit, and I'm going to catch it and pin it down next time 'round.

New songs are happening. Words are starting to gather around me like hungry pigeons, waiting to shit on me or peck my eyes out or maybe just eat my bread and fly away. That analogy may have escaped me but I'm still pretty fond of it.

Uh. So Christmas. I've written bitchy, miserable, misanthropic pieces about how Christmas is secretly a dark time of introspection and no one's actually happy. Younger me thought that I had stumbled on to some dark secret that maybe a few were privy to, or that maybe I was just IN TUNE enough to understand the Human Condition while everyone else lied to themselves. Christ, I was an egomaniacal little shit back in those days. This year, I've got Plans. I'm hosting an Island of Misfit Toys christmas involving myself, whoever wants to show up, multiple bottles of whiskey, and Die Hard. I've never seen Die Hard and dammit, this is as good an excuse as any.

The espresso's long since worn off. Time is getting lazy on me. This is good.

Entry One: Early Morning Ramblings

It's 8:11AM, and I've spend the past three hours watching local news channels and googling how to clean guns. Such a combination of inane pseudo-reporting and firearms blended with ungodly amounts of caffeine I pour into myself every night leads to some unusual thought processes. Stuff like "If Richard Nixon were still alive, would he have gotten into a fistfight with John McCain?" and "I should bombard the news stations with bizarre anonymous letters simultaneously praising and condemning every nuance of the program I could possibly think of." And, of course, there was the granddaddy of the strange ideas, the one that still makes perfect sense and probably will until I get some sleep:

"Hey, I've got stuff to say. I should start a blog!"

And so here we are, you and I (whoever you out there might be.) First thoughts of the day are on something I caught on the Channel 4 Power Hour or whatever the hell they're calling these "newscasts" these days. Sarah Palin is on the chopping block again, this time for keeping Q&A session notes written on the palm of her hand. The more tongue-in-cheek commentators have taken to calling this "Palmgate," because the '-gate' suffix won't get old in American politics until we can't actually remember who Richard Nixon was. Whatever your thoughts on Palin's actions and how that reflects on her leadership/intelligence/right to claim that she is, in fact, sentient, what this really shows is that Sarah Palin has now become the GOP's rodeo clown. While the Party scrambles to pull itself together in time for the 2010 elections (and starts pre-gaming for the Big Race in 2012,) they're tossing Sarah "Can See Russia From Her House" Palin, the woman who has been cited as the number one reason John McCain lost the Presidential election, in front of all the cameras for her to do her thing. From making less-than-offhand comments about taking on Barack Obama in '12 to the latest Palin "whoopsie" moment, Sarah is exactly what the GOP could use now: a face to make them look comfortable and ridiculous (certainly anything but a threat!) while the real players get lined up. It's an opossum's play, and it's working fantastically at the moment.

So who are the "real players?" I'm betting Scott Brown; this is a young, charismatic, good-looking guy with a fantastic military record who sits just on the fence enough on major issues to be relatively comfortable to most people. He's certainly bold enough to go for the Big Chair after a two-year stint in the Senate. Word has it that Jeb Bush will run; I wish him the best of luck. He was a miserable soul-sucker of a governer and the brother of the most lambasted president since Jimmy Carter. The Bush name, if you ask me, is still mud in D.C. Some familiar faces, Bobby Jindal, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney...more thoughts on all this later. Just something to keep in mind: watch how often Sarah is in the media, and remember the giggles when the GOP starts swinging.